THE  ADVANCE  OF 

"^  ""  I!  THE  mr    - 

ENGLISH  NOVEL 

WILLIAM  LYON  PHELPS 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

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THE  ADVANCE  OF 
THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 


THE  ADVANCE  OF 
THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 


BY 

WILLIAM  LYON, PHELPS 

Lampson  Professor   of   English  Literature  at  Yale 
Member  of  the  National  Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters 

Author  of  ''Essays  on    Modern   Novelists," 
"Essays  on  Russian  Noveusts,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

1916 


Copyright.  1915 

By  DODD,  mead  AND  COMPANY 

Copyright,  1915 

By  DODD.  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  INC. 


^^JUt^  ii.^t4^^        3</^^V 


To 
HENRY  A.  BEERS 


773 


PREFACE 

Of  this  book,  all  the  chapters  except  the  last 
appeared  originally  in  the  Bookman;  the  last 
was  printed  in  the  Yale  Review  for  July  1916. 

My  sketch  of  the  advance  of  the  novel  in  Eng- 
lish includes  two  centuries.  I  have  laid  the 
chief  stress  on  recent  and  contemporary  writers, 
although  it  has  been  impossible  even  to  approach 
completeness  of  treatment.  Many  novelists  are 
omitted  that  may  seem  important ;  but  the  book 
is  a  record  of  personal  impressions  and  opin- 
ions. I  shall  be  glad  if  some  individuals  feel 
the  pleasure  of  recognition,  the  pleasure  of  op- 
position, and  a  stimulus  to  further  reading. 

W.  L.  P. 
Yale  University, 
Tuesday,  23  May  1916 


vii 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

I    Present  State  op  the  Novel 1 

II  The  Age  of  Anne — Defoe  and  Richardson  .  27 

III  Fielding,  Smollett,  Sterne 53 

IV  Eighteenth  Century  Romances     ....  79 
V    The  Mid- Victorians 104 

VI    Romantic  Revival,*  1894-1904 133 

VII    Meredith  and  Hardy 163 

VIII  Conrad,  Galsworthy  and  Others  ....  192 

IX  Twentieth  Century  British  Novelists    .     .  232 

X  Twentieth  Century  American  Novelists  .     .  267 

XI    Henry  James 302 

Index 331 


THE  ADVANCE  OF 
THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 


THE  ADVANCE  OF  THE 
ENGLISH  NOVEL 

CHAPTER  I 

PRESENT   STATE   OF   THE   NOVEL 

The  present  state  of  the  novel — its  immense  popularity — 
the  rise  in  its  respectability — definition  of  a  good  novel — 
the  penalty  of  popularity — ^reasons  for  this  popularity — 
books  sold  under  false  pretences — distinction  between 
"romance"  and  "novel" — the  philosophy  underlying  realism 
and  romanticism — the  strength  of  realism — ^the  vicious  circle 
in  all  art. 

The  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  wit- 
nessed the  predominance  in  literature  of  the 
novel.  More  copies  of  novels  were  in  circula- 
tion than  all  other  kinds  of  books  put  together. 
It  took  two  centuries  to  bring  about  the  consum- 
mation; and  at  this  moment  the  novel  is  still 
supreme.  Nothing  threatens  its  hegemony  ex- 
cept the  growing  vogue  of  the  printed  play,  ac- 
companied as  it  has  been  by  a  blizzard  of  critical 
works  on  the  stage.    We  cannot  help  noticing 

1 


2  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

how  many  professional  novelists  have  become 
professional  playwrights.  Does  this  mean  that 
the  drama  has  really  awakened  at  last,  re- 
freshed by  a  sound  sleep  of  three  hundred 
years  1  Does  it  mean  that  the  dying  prophecies 
of  William  Sharp  and  Bronson  Howard  are  to 
become  fact,  and  the  next  generation  is  to  ex- 
press itself  mainly  in  dramatic  dialogue,  as  in 
the  days  of  Elizabeth?  Or  is  all  this  play-mak- 
ing simply  one  more  florescence  from  the  root 
of  all  evil?  Has  the  same  quick-return  fever 
that  has  shaken  the  souls  from  so  many  bodies  in 
business  smitten  the  vast  army  of  literary  specu- 
lators with  drama  delirium? 

No  accurate  answers  can  yet  be  given  to  these 
questions;  but  to  those  professional  students, 
critics  and  teachers  of  literature  who  are  as 
eagerly  interested  in  contemporary  production 
as  are  teachers  of  science  and  economics,  the  lit- 
erary movements  of  the  next  twenty  years  are 
going  to  be  well  worth  watching.  Meanwhile 
the  present  proud  height  of  the  novePs  popular- 
ity and  influence  makes  an  excellent  platform  for 
the  observer;  he  cannot  only  look  about  him;  he 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  3 

has  a  fine  chance  to  look  hack,  and  if  he  is  men- 
tally alive,  he  cannot  help  looking  forward. 

There  are  fashions  in  the  array  of  thoughts 
as  there  are  fashions  in  corporeal  coverings; 
and  as  it  would  be  a  bold  undertaking  to  explain 
the  causes  of  the  time-variations  in  the  length  of 
men's  coats  and  the  diameter  of  women's  hats, 
so  even  the  most  philosophical  historian  cannot 
fully  account  for  the  occasional  predominance  of 
certain  literary  forms.  Even  some  literary  ma- 
terial actually  vanishes ;  scholastic  speculation, 
that  filled  many  folios,  seems  extinct.  But  the 
chief  material  of  literature  is  human  nature. 
which  never  changes ;  poets,  dramatists,  novel- 
ists, satirists  focus  their  attention  on  ** man's 
thoughts,  and  loves  and  hates."  It  is  the  fash- 
ion of  expression  that  varies ;  it  is  rather  inter- 
esting to  reflect  that  not  merely  the  mob  of 
professional  scribblers,  who  produce  what  to- 
day is,  and  to-morrow  is  cast  into  the  oven,  but 
inspired  men  of  genius  interpreted  human  life 
by  means  of  the  drama  and  the  sonnet  in  1600, 
by  the  heroic  couplet  in  1700  and  by  the  novel  in 
1900.    Twentieth  century  publishers  are  not 


4  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

eagerly  looking  for  theology  in  verse;  yet  two 
hundred  years  ago  theological  poetry  was  a  sure 
card.  Pope's  Essay  on  Man  sold  off  as  sen- 
sationally as  Winston  ChurchilPs  The  Inside 
of  the  Cup.  Pope  and  Mr.  Churchill  had  one 
thing  in  common  besides  success — an  accurate 
flair  for  public  taste.  I  dare  say  that  Pope 
would  be  a  clever  realistic  novelist  were  he  alive 
to-day — for  he  would  know  his  market  now  as  he 
knew  it  then.  In  his  time  theological  verse  was 
so  much  in  demand  that  Samuel  Boyse,  who 
usually  wrote  in  bed,  his  frequent  sprees  giving 
the  pawn-broker  possession  of  his  garments, 
composed  a  poem  on  the  nature  of  the  Deity,  be- 
ing forced — unhappy  artist — to  produce  some- 
thing that  would  sell.  A  similar  predicament 
would  to-day  drive  his  energies  into  a  quite  dif- 
ferent channel.  Boyse 's  poetry  is  read  no 
more;  and  he  would  have  followed  his  works 
were  it  not  that  Dr.  Johnson  liked  him  and  used 
to  go  about  collecting  sixpences  to  redeem  his 
clothes,  thus  giving  temporary  decency  to  his 
body  and  immortality  to  his  name.  The  reading 
public  in  those  days  was  patrician ;  in  the  latter 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  5 

half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  ability 
to  read  ceased  to  be  any  more  of  a  distinction 
than  the  ability  to  breathe,  the  novel  reached 
the  climax  of  popularity.  For  the  novel  is  the 
most  democratic  form  of  literature,  easily 
adaptable  to  minds  of  high,  low  and  no  intel- 
ligence. 

The  extraordinary  popularity  of  the  novel 
toward  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  is 
proved  by  its  sudden  conquest  of  the  American 
stage.  The  relation  between  acted  play  and 
published  romance  that  had  been  one  of  the 
most  notable  features  in  Elizabethan  literature 
again  came  into  being — with  just  the  opposite 
emphasis  and  for  a  totally  different  reason. 
The  Elizabethan  dramatists — except  Ben  Jon- 
son — did  not  dream  of  inventing  their  plots; 
their  business,  as  some  one  has  said,  was  not 
creation,  but  translation.  They  hunted  for 
plots,  not  in  their  own  brain,  but  in  contempo- 
rary fiction ;  they  selected  a  story,  adapted  it  for 
the  stage,  and  in  many  cases  gave  it  permanent 
beauty.  The  only  reason  why  many  Eliza- 
bethan prose  romances  are  still  read  is  because 


6  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Shakespeare  glorified  them  by  his  genius ;  Tol- 
stoi being  the  only  person  who  has  maintained 
that  the  originals  were  better  than  the  dramas. 
The  playwrights  took  this  material,  not  because 
it  was  popular,  but  because  it  was  convenient ; 
and  the  custom  lapsed  with  the  extinction  of  the 
Elizabethan  stage.  It  was  resumed,  however, 
in  1894;  and  for  ten  years  flourished  mightily, 
being  finally  killed  by  the  American  sense  of 
humour.  Two  prodigiously  popular  novels  ap- 
peared in  1894:  Trilby  and  The  Prisoner 
of  Zenda,  They  were  quickly  transferred  to 
the  stage,  where  thousands  of  people  greeted 
the  incarnation  of  their  favourite  characters 
with  childish  delight.  The  *  *  dramatised  novel '  * 
became  a  fad;  every  **best  seller''  was  certain 
to  take  dramatic  form,  not  because  it  contained 
germs  of  drama  but  because  it  was  the  thing 
everybody  was  talking  about.  Each  theatre 
manager  in  New  York  employed  men  who 
made  dramas  with  scissors  and  paste ;  and  one 
director  said  frankly  that  the  natural  adapta- 
bility of  the  particular  novel  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  case  so  long  as  it  was  popular ;  he  had 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  7 

a  man  on  a  salary  who  had  become  so  skilful 
that  he  could  make  a  play  out  of  the  city  direc- 
tory, were  there  any  demand  for  it.  It  is  sel- 
dom in  the  history  of  literature  that  the  popu- 
larity of  a  certain  form  becomes  so  extensive 
as  to  conquer  another  form  with  which  it  has 
really  almost  nothing  in  common;  in  this  in- 
stance the  drama  for  a  decade  became  the  slave 
of  the  novel ;  and  the  fact  is  worth  recording  as 
showing  the  triumphant  vogue  of  the  latter. 

The  advance  of  the  novel  in  popularity  was 
accompanied  by  an  automatic  rise  in  respecta- 
bility. A  hundred  years  ago  novel  reading  was 
thought  by  many  to  be  positively  wicked,  classed 
with  that  unholy  trinity — cards,  dancing,  stage- 
plays.  The  mother  of  Thomas  Carlyle  read 
only  one  novel  in  her  life,  Goethe's  Wilhelm 
Meister;  and  she  read  that  because  her  son 
had  translated  it,  the  best  of  all  reasons,  from  a 
maternal  point  of  view,  for  making  an  excep- 
tion. Could  Goethe  by  any  possibility  have 
imagined  in  the  course  of  its  composition  that  it 
would  be  read  by  such  a  woman?  Yet  John 
Carlyle  wrote  to  his  brother  Thomas:  **She  is 


8  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

sitting  here  as  if  under  some  charm,  reading 
Meister,  and  has  nearly  got  through  the  sec- 
ond volume.  Though  we  are  often  repeating 
honest  Hall  Foster's  denouncement  against 
readers  of  *  novels,'  she  still  continues  to  perse- 
vere. She  does  not  relish  the  character  of  the 
women,  and  especially  of  Philina :  *  They  are  so 
wanton.'  She  cannot  well  tell  what  it  is  that 
interests  her."  Indeed,  from  Jane  Austen  to 
Henry  James,  responsible  novelists  were  on  the 
defensive.  In  the  fifth  chapter  of  Northanger 
Abbey  we  are  told  that  two  girls : 

shut  themselves  up  to  read  novels  together.  Yes, 
novels ;  for  I  will  not  adopt  that  ungenerous  and  im- 
politic custom,  so  common  with  novel  writers,  of  de- 
grading, by  their  contemptuous  censure,  the  very  per- 
formances to  the  number  of  which  they  are  them- 
selves adding;  joining  with  their  greatest  enemies  in 
bestowing  the  harshest  epithets  on  such  works,  and 
scarcely  ever  permitting  them  to  be  read  by  their  own 
heroine,  who,  if  she  accidentally  take  up  a  novel,  is 
sure  to  turn  over  its  insipid  pages  with  disgust.  .  .  . 
Let  us  leave  it  to  the  reviewers  to  abuse  such  effu- 
sions of  fancy  at  their  leisure,  and  over  every  new 
novel  to  talk  in  threadbare  strains  of  the  trash  with 
which  the  press  now  groans.    Let  us  not  desert  one 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  9 

another — we  are  an  injured  body.  Although  our  pro- 
ductions have  afforded  more  extensive  and  unaffected 
pleasure  than  those  of  any  other  literary  corporation 
in  the  world,  no  species  of  composition  has  been  so 
much  decried.  From  pride,  ignorance  or  fashion,  our 
foes  are  almost  as  many  as  our  readers;  and  while 
the  abilities  of  the  nine-hundredth  abridger  of  the 
History  of  England,  or  of  the  man  who  collects  and 
publishes  in  a  volume  some  dozen  lines  of  Milton, 
Pope  and  Prior,  with  a  paper  from  the  Spectator  and 
a  chapter  from  Sterne,  are  eulogised  by  a  thousand 
pens — there  seems  almost  a  general  wish  of  decrying 
the  capacity  and  undervaluing  the  labour  of  the  novel- 
ist, and  of  slighting  the  performances  which  have 
only  genius,  wit  and  taste  to  recommend  them.  .  .  . 

**And  what  are  you  reading,  Miss V    **0h,  it 

is  only  a  novel!"  replies  the  young  lady;  while  she 
lays  down  her  book  with  affected  indifference,  or  mo- 
mentary shame.  *'It  is  only  Cecilia,  or  Camilla,  or 
Belinda'^;  or,  in  short,  only  some  work  in  which  the 
greatest  powers  of  the  mind  are  displayed,  in  which 
the  most  thorough  knowledge  of  human  nature,  the 
happiest  delineation  of  its  varieties,  the  liveliest  effu- 
sions of  wit  and  humour,  are  conveyed  to  the  world 
in  the  best-chosen  language. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  Henry  James  thought 
it  necessary  to  insist  on  the  ^^ dignity"  of  the 
novel.    The  best  novelists  are  really  historians, 


10  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

and  the  novel  is  history.  Or,  if  one  is  unaf- 
fected by  the  challenge  of  truth,  Mr.  James 
pleaded  for  the  worth  of  the  novel  in  art.  He 
declared  that  a  picture  was  not  expected  to  apol- 
ogise for  itself,  why  should  the  novel!  Our 
Canadian  contemporary,  Mr.  Leacock,  who  is  a 
professor  of  political  economy,  rather  indig- 
nantly denies  the  supposition  that  his  humor- 
ous extravaganzas  are  the  offshoots  of  leisure 
hours.  Quite  the  contrary  he  affirms  to  be  true, 
saying  that  any  one  can  consult  columns  of  sta- 
tistics and  rearrange  them,  but  to  write  a  work 
of  pure  imagination  requires  a  much  higher 
quality  of  mind  and  much  more  serious  effort. 

When  I  was  a  child  my  mother  would  not  per- 
mit me  to  read  novels  on  Sunday ;  and  yet,  some 
thirty  years  after  that  period,  I  received  a  letter 
from  a  woman  who  was  very  old,  a  bed-ridden 
invalid,  and  the  widow  of  a  Baptist  minister 
(the  three  qualifications  are  not  arranged  as  a 
climax);  she  wrote,  *^ Thank  the  Lord  for 
novels ! ' ' 

If  one  indulges  in  a  little  analysis,  one  sees 
that  the  respectability  of  the  novel  was  naturally 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  11 

forced  to  rise  with  its  popularity — not  because 
of  a  more  general  liberality  in  pleasures,  a 
weakening  of  the  consciousness  of  sin,  an  in- 
creased flippancy  in  all  life 's  habits  and  conven- 
tions ;  no,  the  rise  in  respectability  came  for  just 
the  opposite  reason.  When  any  literary  form 
is  predominant,  the  majority  of  writers  are  com- 
pelled to  write  in  that  form,  simply  because  it  is 
the  surest  way  to  secure  the  two  things  that 
nearly  every  writer  wants — fame  and  cash. 
The  supremacy  of  Elizabethan  drama  forced 
most  of  the  great  writers  of  that  age  to  put  their 
ideas  and  imaginings  into  the  dramatic  form; 
which  is  one  reason  why  the  Elizabethan  drama 
is  so  wonderful  as  poetry  and  so  wretched  as 
drama.  Of  all  those  towering  men  of  genius, 
Shakespeare  alone  holds  the  stage  to-day,  and 
only  a  small  fraction  of  his  plays  are  commonly 
acted. 

During  the  last  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  novel  became  so  popular  that  many 
professional  writers  chose  that  method  of  ex- 
pression, whether  they  had  any  natural  love  for 
it  or  not,  and  even  when  they  were  totally  ignor- 


12  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

ant  of  the  novel  as  an  art  form.  All  over  the 
world  thoughtful  authors  joined  the  ever-swell- 
ing ranks  of  the  novelists.  The  result  was,  of 
course,  that  serious  readers,  men  and  women 
who  were  determined  to  read  works  that  re- 
flected the  great  movements  in  modem  thought, 
were  compelled  to  read  novels^  Clubs  were 
organised  all  over  the  country  to  study  contem- 
porary fiction,  courses  on  the  novel  in  college 
curricula  ceased  to  attract  outside  attention, 
and  critical  works  on  the  subject  multiplied 
abundantly. 

This  vast  popularity  of  the  novel  was  and  is 
by  no  means  an  unmixed  blessing.  Indeed,  with 
reference  purely  to  the  art  of  fiction — a  great 
and  noble  art — it  has  been  fraught  with  disaster. 

\  If  I  were  forced  to  make  a  definition,  I  should 
define  a  high-class  novel  in  five  words — a  good 
§toru  w^ll  told.    How  rarely  do  we  find  a  per- 

'  feet  illustration !  The  number  of  people  who 
are  seeking  in  the  welter  of  contemporary  books 
to  find  **good  stories" — stories  that  shall  at 
once  be  interesting,  charming,  clever,  decent, 
and  that  shall  not  be  treatises  on  politics,  re- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  13 

ligion  or  sociology — the  number  of  such  earnest 
seekers  after  amusement  is  pathetic.  They 
want  entertainment,  and  what  are  they  doing? 
Many  are  turning  from  '^novels"  to  history, 
biography,  letters  and  essays  to  find  it.  Every 
man  and  woman  with  any  pretension  at  all  to  a 
knowledge  of  literature  is  constantly  besieged 
with  this  question:  ^' Where  can  I  find  a  really 
good  story  r' 

For  if  a  true  novel  be  a  good  story  well  told, 
it  is  certain  that  the  majority  of  so-called  novels 
are  not  stories  at  all:  of  the  saving  remnant, 
only  a  few  are  good  stories :  and  still  fewer  are 
well  told.  The  great  bulk  of  modern  fiction  may 
be  divided  into  two  classes — those  that  are 
merely  rambling  accounts  of  the  lives  of  unin- 
teresting  characters,  and  those  that  are  treatises 
orT^aspecfs'^of  modern  thought.  Among  the 
**Kest  sellers"  oi  tne  past  tJairty  years  only  a 
small  number  could  possibly  be  classified  as 
artistic  novels.  Edward  Bellamy  was  deeply 
interested  in  socialism,  and  its  earnest  advocate 
as  well ;  in  1860  he  would  perhaps  have  written 
a  tract  embodying  his  arguments,  but  coming  at 


14  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

a  later  time,  he  called  his  treatise  a  novel,  and 
named  it  Looking  Backward,  Mrs.  Ward  has 
never  written  a  novel  in  her  life,  and  only  once 
came  near  it,  in  Bavid  Grieve.  But  she  is  a 
serious,  earnest,  thoughtful,  deeply  read  woman, 
with  a  passion  to  improve  the  world:  she  once 
wrote  a  treatise  on  religious  reform,  and  called 
it  Robert  Elsmere,  As  people  are  more  inter- 
ested in  religion  than  in  any  other  subject  in  the 
world  save  two,  her  book  had  a  prodigious  suc- 
cess— exactly  paralleled  a  short  time  ago  by 
Winston  ChurchilPs  The  Inside  of  the  Cup. 
For  many  months  after  the  day  of  its  publica- 
tion this  work  was  selling  at  the  rate  of  five 
hundred  copies  a  day;  yet,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  curate,  there  was  not  a  living 
character  in  the  book,  there  was  no  real  story, 
and  none  of  the  charm  of  fiction.  But  there 
was  a  timely  and  earnest  discussion  of  the  mod- 
ern creed  and  the  modern  work  of  the  church, 
with  a  plea  for  liberalism.  Suppose  one  is  in- 
terested in  the  question — Have  we  a  right  to  kill 
our  friends  when  they  are  suffering  acutely  from 
a  hopeless  disease? — one  may  be  referred  to 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  15 

Edith  Wharton's  work  on  the  subject,  called 
The  Fruit  of  the  Tree,  The  fact  that  in  this 
particular  instance  the  woman  who  did  kill  her 
friend  to  save  her  from  suffering  subsequently 
married  the  friend's  husband,  is  merely  a  mat- 
ter of  detail,  and  should  not  be  permitted  to 
distract  our  attention  from  the  main  theme. 
All  of  these  *^ novels''  remind  me  of  the  way  I 
was  once  decoyed  by  a  Sunday  school  book.  I 
looked  over  the  catalogue,  and  my  youthful  at- 
tention was  arrested  by  the  title  Putnam  and 
the  Wolf,  Thinking  I  should  witness  a  rattling 
good  fight,  I  drew  out  the  book,  and  in  the  calm 
of  the  Sunday  afternoon  began  to  read.  This 
was  the  first  sentence:  ^*As  General  Putnam 
descended  into  the  cave  to  fight  with  the  fierce 
and  savage  wolf,  so  should  we  all  struggle  with 
the  demon  of  intemperance."  And  there  was 
not  a  further  allusion  to  either  Putnam  or  the 
wolf  in  the  entire  work.  **  Money  under  false 
pretences"  is  a  mild  term  for  such  literary  dex- 
terity; but  it  can  now  be  paralleled  in  every 
publisher's  list  of  forthcoming  works  of  fiction. 
The  production  of  literature  and  the  various 


16  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

forms  that  it  assumes  are,  of  course,  chiefly 
governed  by  our  old  friend  in  the  study  of 
political  economy — the  law  of  supply  and  de- 
mand. What,  then,  has  caused  the  sharp  de- 
mand for  novels  which  has  made  the  supply  in- 
crease in  a  cumulative  progression  since  1850, 
and  which  accounts  for  such  a  vast  body  of 
essays,  sermons,  theses,  arguments,  scientific 
treatises,  masquerading  as  works  of  fiction?  It 
is,  I  think,  the  enormous  increase  of  high 
schools.  Formerly  the  number  of  people  for 
whom  reading  was  either  a  refuge  or  a  stimula- 
tion was  comparatively  small ;  toward  the  close 
of  the  nineteenth  century  millions  of  people 
discovered  the  pleasure  or  the  ansBsthetic  of 
books.  I  do  not  refer  to  college  professors, 
ministers,  journalists,  etc.,  who  make  their  liv- 
ing by  reading  books  and  then  writing  or  speak- 
ing about  them;  no,  I  mean  people  engaged  in 
useful  occupations,  who  work  hard  during  the 
day,  and  who  read  anywhere  from  six  to  fifteen 
hours  a  week  for  pleasure.  Most  of  these  read 
for  a  mental  change  of  air,  for  rest,  relaxation, 
for  refuge  from  sorrow,  for  relief  from  care. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  17 

possibly  to  get  to  sleep  o'  nights — this  vast 
army  of  readers  demand,  of  course,  something 
entertaining,  something  that  can  be  guaranteed 
to  divert  the  mind ;  and  the  novel  has  risen  by 
leaps  and  bounds  to  satisfy  this  particular 
daughter  of  the  horse-leech. 

It  is  somewhat  unfortunate,  in  discussing  the 
history  of  English  prose  fiction,  that  we  cannot 
make  a  sharp  distinction  between  the  words 
** romance''  and  *' novel."  We  ought  to  mean 
by^*^ romance"  a  story  wJiere  the  chief  interest 
lies,  not  in  the  characters,  but  m  tne  events ;  as, 
for  example,  Quentin  Durward.  By  the  word 
*^ novel"  we  should  denote  a  story  where  the 
principal  stress  falls,  not  on  the  succession  of 
incidents,  but  on  the  development  of  the  char- 
acters ;  an  excellent  illustration  would  be  The 
Mill  on  the  Floss,  Occasionally  a  man  of  gen- 
ius has  made  a  splendidly  successful  fusion  of 
the  two,  as  in  Thackeray's  Henry  Esmond — 
which,  if  a  secret  ballot  could  be  taken,  might 
possibly  be  voted  the  greatest  work  of  fiction 
in  the  English  language.  In  1785,  at  the  flood- 
tide  of  the  English  Eomantic  Movement,  Clara 


18  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Eeeve  attempted  to  draw  a  distinction  between 
the  two  words:  **  The  novel  is  a  picture  of 
'eal  life  and  manners,  and  of  the  times  in  which 
it  is  written.  The  romance,  in  lofty  and  ele- 
vated language,  describes  what  never  happened 
\  nor  is  likely  to  happen.  The  novel  gives  a 
\familiar  relation  of  such  things  as  pass  every 
uay  before  our  eyes,  such  as  may  happen  to  our 
j^iend  or  to  ourselves."  It  will  be  observed 
that  her  distinction  is  not  the  same  as  the  one 
I  have  suggested  as  desirable.  I  do  not  think 
the  main  difference  should  be  one  of  style,  nor 
do  I  think  romances  should  include  only  those 
works  which  deal  with  fantastic  or  impossible 
adventures;  for  such  a  nomenclature  would 
leave  no  place  at  all  for  those  works  of  fiction 
that  deal  with  historical  events  and  personages 
in  a  manner  that  is  meant  to  be  scrupulously 
accurate.  Such  works,  according  to  Clara 
Eeeve,  and  all  historians  who  follow  her,  could 
not  possibly  be  either  romances  or  novels. 
What  are  they,  then! 

When  one  considers  such  diflficulties  as  these, 
one  is,  after  all,  reconciled  to  the  generally  pre- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  19 

vailing  loose  use  of  the  word  ^^  novel,  "which 
means  simply  any"wofF^rprose  fiction.  Defi- 
nitions are  dangerous ;  nosooner  have  you  got 
your  definition  stated  in  a  manner  that  appears 
to  you  sound  and  unassailable  than  some  awk- 
ward questioner  will  want  to  know  what  you  are 
going  to  do  with  such  and  such  a  concrete  in- 
stance, which  most  certainly  exists,  and  which 
refuses  to  conform  to  your  artificially  made 
standard.  Creative  writers  are  more  interested 
in  the  inherent  truth  and  beauty  of  their  com- 
positions than  they  are  in  their  possible  classi- 
fication under  established  forms.  A  man  who 
writes  for  the  stage  does  not  care  very  much 
if  all  the  critics  refuse  to  call  his  composition 
a  play  so  long  as  the  theatre  is  packed  night 
after  night  and  audiences  are  spellbound.  It 
is  better  to  have  it  indefinable  and  impressive 
than  to  have  it  a  perfect  illustration  of  the 
riiles  without  the  breath  of  life. 

Still  we  can,  I  think,  by  remembering  that  ro- 
mances contain  incident  and  novels  analysis,  find 
such  a  distinction  useful.  One  of  the  greatest 
of  all  English  romances  is  Lorna  Doom;  and 


20  THE  ADVANCE  OP 

its  author,  in  his  original  preface,  remarked: 
**This  work  is  called  a  *  romance,'  because  the 
incidents,  characters,  time  and  scenery  are  alike 
romantic.  And  in  shaping  this  old  tale  the 
writer  neither  dares  nor  desires  to  claim  for 
it  the  dignity  or  cumber  it  with  the  difficulty 
of  an  historic  novel."  There  you  have  the  real 
essence  of  romanticism — liberty.  The  roman- 
/tic  drama  and  the  romantic  story  are  essentially 
Vree — free  of  all  rules,  and  not  to  be  measured 
precisely  by  canons  of  criticism  or  standards 
of  fact.  Mr.  Blackmore  did  not  care  to  verify 
any  statement  or  any  person  in  his  work;  but 
he  meant  to  write,  and  did  write,  a  good  story, 
a  genuine  romance.  For  Lorna  Doone  is  surely 
a  romance,  as  Barchester  Towers  is  surely  a 
novel. 

For  my  part,  as  a  tireless  and  catholic  reader 
of  fiction,  I  do  not  much  care  whether  I  read 
romances  or  novels.  I  have  never  had  any  of 
Mr.  Howells's  contempt  for  romance.  I  have 
more  contempt  for  a  badly  written  realistic 
novel  than  I  have  for  a  well-executed,  wildly 
exciting  romance.    I  had  rather  hear  a  good 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  21 

melodrama  than  a  stupid  play  founded  on  fact. 
But  the  theories  underlying  romantic  and  real- 
istic fiction  are  diametrically  opposed,  and 
might  be  compared  to  two  opposite  methods  of 
treating  a  hospital  ^'case.^'  The  romanticist 
and  the  realist  agree  that  all  men  and  women, 
no  matter  how  apparently  healthy,  are  suffer- 
ing from  an  incurable  disease — life.  In  addi- 
tion to  being  doomed — every  one  of  us — most 
of  us  are  not  any  too  comfortable  in  our  pro- 
longed illness.  Our  days  are  filled  with  small 
aches  and  pains,  little  vexations,  frustrated 
hopes,  with  every  now  and  then  a  calamity  or  a 
disaster  of  serious  magnitude.  Our  appear- 
ance, ability  and  resources  during  the  progress 
of  our  disease  are  just  ordinary,  without  any 
positively  striking  characteristic.  The  world  is 
made  up  of  average  men  and  women,  whose 
lives  are  filled  with  trivial  events.  Your  real- 
ist is  a  homeopath;  because  persons  and  hap- 
penings are  for  the  most  part  commonplace, 
novels  should  be  the  same ;  they  should  exhibit 
commonplace  people,  and  extraordinary  inci- 
dents should  be  barred.    Let  all  novel  readers 


22  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

find  the  truth  of  life  accurately  reflected  in  art, 
anfl  art  will  be  a  real  antiseptic.  Your  roman- 
ticist,  while  agreeing  in  the  diagnosis,  insists 
on  an  absolutely  opposite  remedy.  Because  life 
is  rather  stupid  and  commonplace,  art  should  be 
just  the  contrary.  Novels  should  save  us  from 
ourselves,  by  taking  lis  into  a  refreshingly  dif- 
ferent world.  Eomances  should  act  on  our 
nerves  exactly  as  a  change  of  air — to  borrow 
Stevenson's  phrase — acts  on  the  bodily  health. 
Without  the  slightest  jar  in  the  transit,  we 
escape  from  our  environment,  meet  marvel- 
lously strong  men  and  radiantly  beautiful 
women,  who,  after  passing  through  thrilling 
adventures,  reach  a  paradise  of  wedded  love. 
The  novelist  remoulds  the  sorry  scheme  of 
things  nearer  to  the  heart's  desire.  We  re- 
turn to  the  daily  task  refreshed  in  spirit,  with 
the  blessed  knowledge  that  the  first  half-hour 
of  leisure  can  take  us  back  to  the  world  of 
beauty. 

While  the  philosophies  underlying  realism 
and  romanticism  are  thus  diametrically  in  op- 
position, it  must  be  confessed  that,  however 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  23 

alluring  and  diverting  the  field  of  romance  may 
be,  the  realist  makes  in  the  end  a  deeper  and 
more  lasting  impression  on  the  mind.  Sup- 
pose, for  example,  Blackmore  had  supplied  a 
different  ending  to  Lorna  Boone,  as  some  mis- 
guided critics  would  have  preferred.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  at  the  wedding  in  the  tiny 
church  Carver  slips  in  with  a  gun  and  shoots 
the  bride;  she  lingers  for  a  page  and  a  half, 
and  recovers.  Now,  suppose  she  had  suc- 
cumbed. The  reader  would  doubtless  have 
wept;  then  shortly  have  dried  his  tears  with 
the  sound  reflection  that  all  this  never  hap- 
pened, and  that  it  is  silly  to  weep  over  the  fate 
of  even  so  attractive  a  girl  as  Lorna,  since  she 
never  existed.  We  come  to  ourselves  at  the 
end  of  a  sad  romance,  as  we  leave  the  opera 
house  after  the  curtain  of  Kdnigshinder  to  eat 
a  good  supper,  or  as  we  awake  from  a  horrible 
dream,  and  hear  the  reassuring  trolley  car  go 
by.  But  the  effect  brought  by  a  realistic  novel 
cannot  be  thus  summarily  blotted  out;  in  fact, 
it  cannot  be  blotted  out  at  all,  except  by  the 
slow  and  unconscious  method  of  forgetting  it. 


24  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

When  one  finishes  Esther  Waters,  one  cannot 
say,  ** Pshaw,  this  is  all  a  dream!''  because  it 
is  not  a  dream,  and  we  feel  certain  that  the 
selected  cases  are  accurately  typical  of  mil- 
lions. 

Every  sincere  novelist,  poet  and  dramatist 
hopes  that  his  created  illusion  will  endure ;  all 
have  a  well-founded  fear  of  importunate  facts 
of  life  that  may  erase  the  impression  made  by 
the  eloquence  of  art.  The  dramatist  wishes 
that  between  the  acts  the  audience  would  remain 
in  their  seats,  discussing  the  probabilities  of  the 
next  act  in  awestruck  whispers ;  but  the  women 
indulge  in  social  gossip  and  the  men  adjourn 
for  a  drink.  In  August,  1914,  every  novelist 
was  angry  with  the  war ;  he  would  rather  have 
the  little  groups  of  casual  acquaintances  talk- 
ing excitedly  about  the  one  thing  most  impor- 
tant to  him.  Even  in  the  absence  of  journal- 
istic sensations,  life  is  always  the  ruthless 
enemy  of  art;  the  novelist  fears  the  bridge 
party,  the  dramatist  fears  the  oysters  and 
champagne.  So  the  teacher  fears  the  football 
game  which  is  imminent,  and  the  fiery  preacher 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  25 

the  soggy  Sunday  dinner,  which  will  stupefy 
the  audience  he  has  momentarily  awakened  to 
a  sense  of  spiritual  values.  Art  loses  much  in 
a  vicious  circle;  the  singers  cannot  be  sup- 
ported without  the  boxes,  and  the  boxes  do  not 
always  respond  to  the  singer  ^s  soul,  and  they 
are  often  empty  during  the  early  and  during 
the  late  portions  of  the  great  opera.  The  faith- 
ful gallery  has  the  thrills,  but  lacks  the  cash. 
The  West  End  dramatist  is  the  one  who  reaps 
the  harvest  of  gold ;  and  his  plays  are  supported 
by  grown-up  children  and  must  be  modelled  to 
their  necessities.  For  although  God  never 
tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb,  the  artist 
finds  it  expedient  to  do  so.  The  novelist  may 
aim  his  work  at  the  highest  intelligence ;  but  the 
highest  intelligence  borrows  or  reads  the  book 
in  a  public  library,  adding  nothing  to  the 
author  ^s  royalties.  If  it  is  to  make  an  imme- 
diate fortune  for  him,  he  must  perhaps  com- 
promise with  his  soul.  If  it  is  to  be  published 
in  a  limited  and  beautiful  edition,  it  will  be 
owned  by  those  who  will  never  cut  the  leaves. 
The  greatest  portrait  painter  cannot  always 


26  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

select  interesting  faces ;  he  is  doomed  to  paint 
those  who  have  his  price. 

This  fear  of  indifference,  frivolity,  lack  of 
response  on  the  part  of  those  by  whom  the  work 
of  art  is  made  possible  has  afflicted  many  a 
creative  genius.  At  the  very  beginning  of  Pere 
Goriot  Balzac  roared  in  his  reader's  face: 
**This  drama  is  neither  fiction  nor  romance. 
It  is  so  true  that  each  one  can  recognise  its 
elements  in  his  own  home;  yes,  perchance  in 
his  own  heart.'' 

Everything  works  together  for  evil  against 
art.  The  only  possible  salvation  is  sincerity. 
The  duration  and  depth  of  the  impression  made 
by  a  realistic  novel  are  both  in  direct  proportion 
to  its  approximation  to  reality;  whether  the 
reality  be  in  the  events,  in  the  characters,  or 
in  both. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  AGE   OP  ANNE 

Modern  realism  in  the  age  of  Anne — modem  English 
prose  style — the  parents  of  the  English  novel — Daniel  Defoe 
and  his  realistic  romances — the  style  of  Gulliver's  Travels — 
the  three  ways  of  telling  a  story — Richardson  and  the 
psychological  novel. 

The  men  of  Queen  Anne  brought  prose  fiction 
from  heaven  or  hell  to  earth,  and  gave  us  the 
novel.  Of  all  centuries,  the  eighteenth  holds 
the  primacy  as  the  Century  of  Beginnings ;  and 
perhaps  for  this  reason  we  of  the  twentieth 
have  a  higher  regard  for  it  than  the  Victorians 
expressed.  During  the  fifteen  years  of  the 
present  epoch,  there  has  been  a  noticeable  re- 
habilitation of  the  eighteenth  century;  so  that 
it  already  seems  strange  to  remember  that  sixty 
years  ago  *^the  age  of  prose  and  reason''  stood 
low  in  public  esteem.  We  know  now  that  the 
English  Augustans,  with  all  their  limitations, 
had  a  sense  of  fact  that  is  worth  having.    Their 

27 


28  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

world  was  a  real  world,  and  tliey  made  the  best 
of  it.  Its  pleasures  were  real,  its  pains  were 
real ;  and  when  they  spoke  of  the  comforts  and 
social  delights  of  urban  life,  they  knew  exactly 
what  they  were  talking  about.  They  were  like 
the  Parisians;  in  all  spheres  of  art,  they  rated 
cerebration  higher  than  passion.  They  hated 
mystery  and  enthusiasm  as  being  somehow 
symptomatic  of  a  sloven  and  unkempt  mind; 
they  loved  clarity,  regularity,  and  the  restraint 
that  accompanies  good  breeding.  The  reaction 
against  the  Puritan  religious  excesses  of  the 
imagination  was  still  powerful ;  and  the  weari- 
some sectarian  controversies  of  the  seventeenth 
century  had  developed  a  kind  of  polite  scepti- 
cism, which  took  the  shape  of  a  general  con- 
formity to  the  Church  of  England.  This  earth 
was  good  enough,  without  supersensual  specu- 
lation ;  and  the  best  thing  in  this  earth  was  Lon- 
don. They  took  the  cash,  and  let  the  credit  go. 
One  reason  why  Queen  Anne  literature  is  so 
clear  is  because  it  isn't  deep.  Writers  avoided 
difficult  themes,  and  confined  themselves  to  sub- 
jects entirely  within  the  range  of  limited  minds. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  29 

These  men  were  all  realists,  whether  they  wrote 
verse  or  prose — ^Addison,  Swift,  Pope,  Steele, 
Defoe,  Prior,  Gay,  Parnell,  Arbuthnot — ^they 
looked  down  and  not  np.  It  was  an  age  of 
criticism;  and  while  it  is  not  always  true  that 
poetry  is  a  criticism  of  life,  the  novel  most  cer- 
tainly is.  It  was  by  no  accident  that  the  novel 
was  born  at  that  time.  Those  intensely  mod- 
ern, sophisticated,  clear-headed  folk,  with  a 
dominant  sense  of  fact,  had  precisely  the  right 
equipment  to  produce  realistic  fiction,.  This 
is  shown  by  the  astounding  result — ^the  first 
three  English  novelists  will  rank  for  all  time 
in  the  highest  class.  In  the  English  novel  there 
is  no  early  development  from  crudity  to  perfec- 
tion, from  simple  to  complex;  the  thing  began 
with  an  immortal  masterpiece. 

The  history  of  literature  is  full  of  paradoxes. 
English  literature  is  instinctively  and  prima- 
rily romantic,  as  French  literature  is  not.  Yet 
every  attempt  of  the  English — from  Morte 
d^ Arthur  in  1485  to  Waverley  in  1814 — to  pro- 
duce a  prose  romance,  was  an  ignominious  fail- 
ure.   It  is  an  extraordinary  fact,  that  with  the 


30       •  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

single  and  glorious  exception  of  Malory's  Morte 
d' Arthur,  there  is  not  one  work  of  prose  fiction 
in  English  np  to  the  time  of  Defoe  that  is  worth 
the  time  and  attention  of  the  general  reader. 
For  I  certainly  would  not  read,  nor  advise  any 
one  to  read  EupJiues,  Arcadia,  Rosalind,  Jack 
Wilton,  or  Oroonoko,  for  their  intrinsic  value. 
The  fact  that  most  of  those  works  were  once 
*'best  sellers"  has  not  saved  them;  they  live 
now  only  in  their  historical  significance. 

The  novel,  next  to  the  realistic  play,  is  the 
most  concrete  and  ** natural''  form  of  litera- 
ture; and  it  did  not  appear  until  there  was  an 
adequate  medium  of  expression.  A  simple, 
flexible,  smooth-running  English  prose  style  did 
not  exist  until  the  latter  half  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  first  person  who  had  the 
knack  of  writing  conversationally — that  is,  writ- 
ing in  a  manner  that  reminds  one  of  the  speech 
of  human  beings — ^was  the  professional  poet, 
Abraham  Cowley.  He  wrote  prose  with  his 
left  hand ;  but  he  was  left-handed.  Cowley  was 
a  born  prosateur,  as  his  poetry  proves.  His 
pretentious  odes  are  like  sign-posts  pointing 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  31 

in  the  direction  of  poetry,  which  do  not  move 
themselves.  His  cumbersome,  nickel-plated 
epic,  Davideis,  seems  like  SauPs  huge  armour, 
with  David  rattling  around  inside  of  it.  But 
the  prose  parts  of  his  essays,  which  he  wrote 
just  to  please  himself,  have  all  the  charm  of 
the  conversation  of  a  cultivated  gentleman. 
The  great  Dryden  went  to  school  to  Cowley; 
and  although  he  acknowledged  again  and  again 
his  debt  to  his  teacher  ^s  verse,  he  really  owed 
more  to  the  prose.  No  writer  who  ever  lived 
was  more  a  man  of  his  own  age  than  John 
Dryden;  and  he  seems  to  have  perceived  that 
Cowley  had  a  command  of  a  truly  natural  and 
essentially  modern  prose  style.  What  is  meant 
by  this  will  be  immediately  apparent  by  com- 
paring a  passage  from  Milton  with  a  passage 
from  Cowley. 

From  the  Areopagitica:  ' , 

Methinks  I  see  in  my  mind  a  noble  and  puissant 
nation  rousing  herself  like  a  strong  man  after  sleep, 
and  shaking  her  invincible  locks:  methinks  I  see  her 
as  an  eagle  mewing  her  mighty  youth,  and  kindling 
her  undazzled  eyes  at  the  full  midday  beam ;  purging 


32  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

and  unsealing  her  long  abused  sight  at  the  fountain 
itself  of  heavenly  radiance,  while  the  whole  noise  of 
timorous  and  flocking  birds,  with  those  that  love 
the  twilight,  flutter  about,  amazed  at  what  she  means, 
and  in  their  envious  gabble  would  prognosticate  a 
year  of  sects  and  schisms. 

From  A  Discourse  Concerning  the  Govern- 
ment of  Oliver  Cromwell: 

It  was  the  funeral  day  of  the  late  man  who  made 
himself  to  be  called  protector.  And  though  I  bore 
but  little  affection,  either  to  the  memory  of  him,  or 
to  the  trouble  and  folly  of  all  public  pageantry,  yet 
I  was  forced  by  the  importunity  of  my  company  to 
go  along  with  them,  and  be  a  spectator  of  that  solem- 
nity, the  expectation  of  which  had  been  so  great  that 
it  was  said  to  have  brought  some  very  curious  per- 
sons (and  no  doubt  singular  virtuosos)  as  far  as  from 
the  Mount  in  Cornwall,  and  from  the  Orcades.  I 
found  there  had  been  much  more  cost  bestowed  than 
either  the  dead  man,  or  indeed  death  itself,  could 
deserve.  .  .  .  The  vast  multitude  of  spectators  made 
up,  as  it  uses  to  do,  no  small  part  of  the  spectacle  it- 
self. But  yet,  I  know  not  how,  the  whole  was  so 
managed  that,  methought,  it  somewhat  represented 
the  life  of  him  for  whom  it  was  made;  much  noise, 
much  tumult,  much  expense,  much  magnificence,  much 
vainglory;  briefly,  a  great  show,  and  yet,  after  all 
this,  but  an  ill  sight. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  33 

Dryden,  with  his  love  of  what  was  rational 
and  unaffected,  seems  to  have  adopted  Cowley's 
method  of  prose  composition,  and  carried  it  to 
perfection.  Dryden  is  called  the  Father  of 
English  prose :  he  left  to  his  successors  a  prose 
style  that  combined  simplicity,  ease,  and  dis- 
tinction; a  model  followed  immediately  by  De- 
foe, Swift,  Addison  and  Steele. 

The  English  novel  of  manners  had  for  its 
parents  the  Character  Books  and  the  Periodical 
Essay.  With  the  decay  of  the  Elizabethan 
Drama,  the  Character  Books  became  popular. 
They  were  collections  of  sketches  of  familiar 
types  of  people ;  the  object  of  the  writer  being 
to  give  in  as  small  as  possible  space  a  complete 
pen-picture  of  A  Scholar,  A  Courtier,  A  Milk- 
maid, A  Soldier,  or  whatever  representative  of 
humanity  he  happened  to  select.  Although  this 
species  of  literature  was  ostensibly  objective, 
it  was  really  self-conscious  to  the  last  degree. 
The  author  put  his  own  personality  into  each 
sketch,  filling  in  the  outline  with  pungent  com- 
ment. These  character  books  helped  to  satisfy 
the  natural  curiosity  of  readers  about  human 


34  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

nature,  especially  after  the  opportunity  to  see 
liuman  nature  reveal  itself  on  the  stage  was 
gone.  A  particular  group  of  persons  was 
isolated,  and  its  main  characteristics  sharply 
emphasised;  an  undercurrent  of  satire  salting 
the  sketch.  Thus  it  was  natural  that  Samuel 
Butler,  the  famous  author  of  Hudihras,  should 
have  been  a  prominent  contributor  to  this 
school;  although  the  most  successful  member 
of  it  was  Bishop  John  Earle,  who,  in  his  Micro- 
cosmographie  (1628)  produced  a  portfolio  of 
university  portraits  many  of  which  would  even 
to-day  be  recognised  instantly  as  faithful  like- 
nesses. The  Character  Books  flourished  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  furnished  all  the  ma- 
terial for  a  realistic  novel  except  the  fable. 

This  was  supplied  by  the  periodical  essay, 
which  reached  fruition  in  the  Spectator  (1711), 
where  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  day 
were  accurately  reflected.  Here  the  Character 
Sketch  ceased  to  be  static,  as  in  the  Character 
Books,  and  became  dynamic.  It  was  just  the 
difference  between  the  photograph  and  the  mov- 
ing picture.    A  person  or  group  of  persons  was 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  35 

picked  up,  and  carried  along  through  certain 
familiar  experiences.  This  method  reached  its 
climax  in  the  popular  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley 
papers,  where,  in  portraying  the  varied  activi- 
ties of  this  charming  gentleman  in  town  and 
country,  the  author  was  forced  into  actual  nar- 
rative, which  just  misses  being  a  connected 
story  with  a  formal  plot. 

Thus,  with  the  sharp  isolation  of  character, 
singled  out,  plainly  labelled,  a  pin  stuck  through 
it  to  fix  it  in  place,  and  then  microscopically 
analysed — together  with  narrative  sketches  of 
contemporary  scenes  in  town  and  country  life, 
we  have  the  two  parents  from  whom  our  mod- 
ern realistic  fiction  came. 

Although  Defoe  certainly  wrote  the  first  Eng- 
lish novel,  there  was  a  story  published  in  1680, 
that  differs  from  a  genuine  realistic  novel  only 
in  intention.  This  was  The  Life  and  Death  of 
Mr,  Badman,  by  John  Bunyan.  It  is  a  faith- 
ful picture  of  a  contemporary  man  in  a  con- 
temporary environment;  a  history  of  the  times 
and  manners  related  in  a  downright,  straight- 
forward style ;  and  the  restraint  in  the  account 


36  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

of  the  death-scene  shows  exquisite  art.  The 
author  wrote  the  book  as  a  religious  tract; 
otherwise  it  might  rank  as  the  earliest  novel  in 
the  English  language. 

'  The  first  English  novel  is  still  one  of  the  most 
popular — Rohinson  Crusoe,  by  Daniel  Defoe, 
published  in  1719.  Defoe  was  fifty-eight  years 
old  when  he  wrote  this  story;  and  he  had  been 
scribbling  steadily  for  over  thirty  years.  He 
was  a  consummate  realist,  with  a  keen  sense  of 
fact;  he  had  a  telescopic  imagination,  and  a 
microscopic  eye.  In  subject-matter,  Robinson 
Crusoe  is  wildly  romantic;  in  method  and  in 
style,  it  is  studiously  realistic.  For  even  in  his 
romances,  Defoe  had  the  realistic  manner,  just 
as  Victor  Hugo  in  his  realistic  novels  had  the 
romantic  style.  Defoe  describes  life  on  a  re- 
mote island  as  George  Gissing  would  describe 
a  London  street;  Victor  Hugo  writes  of  the 
sewers  of  Paris  with  superbly  picturesque  elo- 
quence. Defoe's  genius  for  detail  is  what  has 
made  his  masterpiece  such  a  hot  favourite  with 
boys;  the  matter-of-fact  boy  never  thinks  to 
ask,  Is  it  true?  because  he  knows  it  is  true, 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  37 

every  page  of  it.  Boys  are  immediately  tied  to 
the  wheels  of  his  narrative,  and  follow  like 
slaves. 

The  enormous  popularity  of  Robinson  Cru- 
soe has  buried  its  author's  name  and  overshad- 
owed all  his  other  works  of  fiction;  I  suspect 
that  not  merely  boys,  but  many  men  and  women 
of  some  culture,  would  find  it  easier  to  give 
the  name  of  Eobinson's  servant  than  that  of 
his  creator;  and  how  many  general  readers 
know  Moll  Flanders  and  Captain  Singleton? 
I  remember  a  good  talk  on  books  I  enjoyed  once 
with  a  distinguished  Boston  physician,  who, 
though  he  had  been  brought  up  on  Robinson 
Crusoe,  did  not  know  the  name  Defoe,  and  did 
not  suspect  that  the  author  of  Crusoe  had  writ- 
ten other  novels.  He  was  much  interested,  and 
carefully  wrote  down  the  titles  for  subsequent 
perusal.  Yet  it  is  true  that  if  Defoe  had  never 
written  his  island  story,  he  would  still  rank  as 
the  first  English  novelist,  and  as  a  realistic 
author  of  genius.  For  Moll  Flanders  (1722) 
and  Roxana  (1724)  are  shining  examples  of  ab- 
solute realism ;  they  are,  in  the  strictest  use  of 


38  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

the  word,  as  truly  realistic  novels  as  is  Jona- 
than Wild  (1743)  orMrs,  Martin's  Man  (1914). 
They  give  accurate  pictures  of  the  slums,  with 
plans  and  specifications. 

Even  in  his  story  of  sheer  imagination,  deal- 
ing with  a  region  as  remote  from  Defoe's  ex- 
perience as  Paradise,  the  author  sticks  faith- 
fully to  the  realistic  method.  In  Captain 
Singleton  (1720)  Defoe  took  his  readers  across 
the  Dark  Continent.  The  book  is  filled  with 
amazingly  good  guesses,  many  of  which  have 
been  verified  by  explorers;  and  although,  to 
those  who  really  know  the  interior  of  Africa, 
the  Captain's  experiences  might  often  arouse 
laughter,  the  whole  thing  sounds  convincing 
enough  to  the  tenderfoot.  To  me  indeed  it 
seems  more  truthful,  and  perhaps  is,  than  the 
majority  of  ^^books  of  travel"  I  have  read. 
For  Defoe  was  a  skilful  and  an  artistic  liar, 
who  had  considerable  respect  for  his  audience ; 
whereas  many  travellers  and  explorers  seem  to 
under-estimate  the  intelligence  and  overrate  the 
receptivity  of  those  who  stay  at  home.  I  sus- 
pect that  this  book  had  a  greater  influence  on 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  39 

Stevenson  than  any  other  of  Defoe 's :  we  know 
from  the  former  ^s  statement  that  he  studied 
the  literary  style  of  the  first  novelist  with  as- 
siduity. To  test  the  result,  I  read  through  Cap- 
tain Singleton  and  immediately  after  read  The 
Master  of  Ballantrae;  and  it  was  astonishing 
to  see  such  extraordinary  resemblance  free 
from  all  taint  of  plagiarism. 

Every  historian  of  literature  will  say  that 
Defoe  came  closest  to  actual  fact  in  his  Journal 
of  the  Plague  Year  (1722),  which  has  constantly 
been  cited  as  showing  the  marvellous  power  of 
his  imagination.  Librarians  and  cataloguers 
who  have  classified  it  as  **  history  ''  have  been 
treated  by  the  critics  with  a  tolerant  smile,  for 
is  not  such  acceptation  a  tribute  to  the  author's 
genius?  It  has  remained  for  Dr.  Watson 
Nicholson  to  discover  and  to  prove  that  Defoe 's 
work  is  not  imagination,  but  rather  the  coher- 
ent assembling  of  facts  and  figures.  Even  in 
Defoe's  wildest  romances,  he  always  seems  to 
have  his  ** sources":  which,  instead  of  being 
old  ballads  and  poetic  chronicles,  were  more 
like  city  directories,  vital  statistics,  and  cash 


40  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

accounts.  I  always  used  to  wonder  how  it  had 
been  possible  to  describe  that  Plague  Year  with 
such  convincing  detail,  when  Defoe  was  simply 
sitting  at  his  desk,  spinning  it  all  out  of  his 
imagination,  and  ^*  making  it  up  as  he  went 
along."  But  Dr.  Nicholson  has  studied  the 
originals,  and  the  comparison  shows  that  De- 
foe stuck  adhesively  to  his  facts.  Thus  the 
famous  Journal  is  history,  after  all,  and  not 
fiction;  only  it  is  history  narrated  by  a  great 
artist. 

For  of  all  the  works  of  Defoe,  the  Journal 
of  the  Plague  Year  shows  the  most  complete 
mastery  of  prose  style.  The  following  passage 
is  a  proof  that  this  author  could  occasionally 
bring  off  the  rarest  of  all  accomplishments  in 
any  form  of  art — ^he  could  make  the  finished 
result  an  absolute  realisation  of  his  intention. 

A  certain  citizen,  who  had  lived  safe  and  untouched 
till  the  month  of  September,  when  the  weight  of  the 
distemper  lay  more  in  the  city  than  it  had  done  be- 
fore, was  mighty  cheerful,  and  something  too  bold,  as 
I  think  it  was,  in  his  talk  of  how  secure  he  was,  how 
cautious  he  had  been,  and  how  he  had  never  come 
near  any  sick  body.    Says  another  citizen,  a  neigh- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  41 

bour  of  his,  to  him  one  day,  '*Do  not  be  too  confident, 

Mr.  ,  it  is  hard  to  say  who  is  sick  and  who  is 

well;  for  we  see  men  alive  and  well,  to  outward  ap- 
pearance, one  hour,  and  dead  the  next."  **That  is 
true,"  says  the  first  man,  for  he  was  not  a  man  pre- 
sumptuously secure,  but  had  escaped  a  long  while; 
and  men,  as  I  said  above,  especially  in  the  City,  began 
to  be  over  easy  upon  that  score.  * '  That  is  true, ' '  says 
he,  ' '  I  do  not  think  myself  secure,  but  I  hope  I  have 
not  been  in  company  with  any  person  that  there  has 
been  any  danger  in."  *'No!"  says  his  neighbour, 
'*was  not  you  at  the  Bull-head  tavern,  in  Gracechurch 

Street,  with  Mr. ,  the  night  before  last  T '    ''  Yes, ' ' 

says  the  first,  "I  was,  but  there  was  nobody  there 
that  we  had  any  reason  to  think  dangerous."  Upon 
which  his  neighbour  said  no  more,  being  unwilling  to 
surprise  him ;  but  this  made  him  more  inquisitive,  and 
as  his  neighbour  appeared  backward,  he  was  the  more 
impatient,  and  in  a  kind  of  warmth,  says  he  aloud, 
* '  Why,  he  is  not  dead,  is  he  ? "  Upon  which  his  neigh- 
bour still  was  silent,  but  cast  up  his  eyes,  and  said 
something  to  himself ;  at  which  the  first  citizen  turned 
pale,  and  said  no  more  but  this,  *'Then  I  am  a  dead 
man  too,"  and  went  home  immediately,  and  sent  for 
a  neighbouring  apothecary  to  give  him  something 
preventive,  for  he  had  not  yet  found  himself  ill ;  but 
the  apothecary  opening  his  breast,  fetched  a  sigh,  and 
said  no  more  but  this,  '*Look  up  to  God";  and  the 
man  died  in  a  few  hours. 


42  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Never  was  there  a  better  illustration  of  tlie 
superiority  of  concrete  instance  over  abstract 
statement  and  general  description.  The  above 
paragraph  gives  a  clearer  impression  of  the 
ravages  of  the  plague  than  long  chapters  of 
rhetorical  emphasis  could  have  done.  If  only- 
preachers  and  philosophers  would  sit  at  the  feet 
of  Defoe !  Compare  The  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience  in  interest  (and  in  importance)  with 
the  majority  of  works  on  metaphysics. 

Our  first  English  novelist  set  a  notable  ex- 
ample to  his  followers,  in  objectivity.  Neither 
Flaubert  nor  his  disciple  Guy  de  Maupassant 
succeeded  in  holding  themselves  more  aloof 
from  their  characters  than  did  Defoe.  It  is 
amusing  to  remember  that  he  called  Rohinson 
Crusoe  an  allegory  and  pretended  that  his  slum 
stories  had  an  ethical  basis ;  if  we  had  only  his 
novels,  we  should  know  no  more  about  his  char- 
acter and  opinions  than  we  know  of  William 
Shakespeare. 

A  work  that  surely  owed  something  to  Rohin- 
son Crusoe,  though  emanating  from  a  far 
greater  mind,  was  Gulliver's  Travels  (1726). 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  43 

This  is  probably  the  best-written  work  of  fiction 
in  the  English  language,  for  there  has  never 
lived  a  writer  who  had  a  more  absolute  com- 
mand of  prose  than  Jonathan  Swift.  He  wrote 
with  such  astonishing  ease  and  perfection,  that 
it  seems  as  if  even  his  most  secret  thoughts  and 
meditations  must  have  taken  a  correct  literary 
form.  It  was  a  fine  compliment  to  the  new  art 
of  the  novel  that  the  greatest  genius  of  the  age 
should  have  selected  that  form  for  his  satire 
against  the  animal  called  man.  This  work  of 
candid  pessimism  and  bitter  cynicism  stands 
next  to  Rohinson  Crusoe  as  a  juvenile  favour- 
ite ;  because  its  marvellous  imagination  is  made 
vivid  by  the  same  realism  in  details,  and  the 
drawings  in  the  first  two  books  are  exactly  ac- 
cording to  scale.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt 
either  the  veracity  or  the  accuracy  of  the  travel- 
ler. Both  Bunyan  and  Swift  would  be  included 
in  the  highest  rank  of  English  novelists,  if  their 
purpose  in  writing  had  not  been  so  far  afield. 
Defoe  was  fifty-eight  when  he  wrote  Rohinson 
Crusoe,  Swift  was  fifty-nine  when  he  wrote 
Gulliver,  and  Richardson  was  fifty-one  when  he 


44  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

wrote  Pamela.  Possibly  one  reason  why  the 
earliest  forms  of  the  English  novel  were  so 
superbly  developed — for  the  paradox  is  a  truth 
— is  because  their  makers  were  themselves  so 
mature.  The  novel,  which  is  a  critical  analysis 
of  life,  has  usually  been  successful  only  when 
it  has  been  the  fruit  of  experience,  and  when 
the  author  has  learned  the  technique  of  style 
in  other  forms  of  composition.  Of  our  greatest 
English  novelists,  only  one — Dickens — pub- 
lished a  good  novel  before  the  age  of  thirty. 

Professor  Ealeigh,  in  his  admirable  little 
book  The  English  Novel — which  combines  the 
terse  condensation  of  a  manual  with  the  easy 
and  luminous  style  of  good  armchair  talk — 
calls  attention  to  the  three  modes  of  novel  com- 
position.   The  author  may  tell  his  story  as  an 

ITIVimblf^  nV^   nmniprnynTif  TYiiTif^  rparlpr,  h(^  Tnay 

put  the  whole  thing  into  the  speech  of  the  lead- 
ing character,  or  he  may  depend  exclusively  on 
^Xepistolary  correspondence.  One  might  add  that 
many  authors  employ  all  three  in  one ;  the  story 
is  told  by  the  novelist,  with  the  introduction  of 
much  conversation,  varied  by  occasional  letters. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  45 

The  first  method  is  not  the  best  for  youthful 
readers;  for  they  must  ask,  as  I  used  to  ask 
on  reading  a  sentence  like  *  ^  Geoffrey  was  think- 
ing deeply  of  a  new  plan  of  escape, ' ' — ^how  does 
the  author  know  what  Geoffrey  is  thinking 
about?  Telling  the  story  in  the  first  person, 
as  in  Lorna  Doone  and  David  Copperfield,  re- 
stricts the  range  while  heightening  vividness; 
the  great  difficulty  being  that  we  know  the  nar- 
rator bears  a  charmed  life.  John  Eidd  is  sure 
to  emerge  successfully  from  the  most  unpromis- 
ing situations ;  and  the  reader  has  more  curios- 
ity than  suspense.  Professor  Moulton  says  that 
many  people  read  novels  with  only  a  sporting 
interest,  to  see  how  the  books  end ;  this  method 
should  dull  their  attention.  Dickens  evidently 
felt  the  danger  of  this  system,  for  the  first  sen- 
tence in  David  Copper  field  reads,  **  Whether  I 
shall  turn  out  to  be  the  hero  of  my  own  life,  or 
whether  that  station  will  be  held  by  anybody 
else,  these  pages  must  show."  In  Treasure 
Island  Stevenson  really  solved  the  problem;  he 
obtained  all  the  advantages  of  this  method  with 
none  of  its  drawbacks;  for  the  story  is  told  in 


46  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

the  first  person,  but  by  one  of  the  least  impor- 
tant characters.  Thus  we  have  constant  vivid- 
ness, with  no  sense  of  security.  The  third  way, 
having  the  whole  novel  consist  of  letters,  is  val- 
uable only  for  mature  readers;  but  perhaps  it 
is  the  best  for  revelation  of  character  in  its  most 
elemental  passions  and  most  trivial  caprices. 
Perhaps  it  is  also  best  for  creating  and  main- 
taining the  illusion.  In  a  way,  too,  this  plan 
combines  the  excellences  of  the  second  and  third 
methods.  When  a  story  is  told  in  the  first 
person,  it  is  like  reading  a  long  letter  from  one 
character,  as  the  first  paragraph  of  any  such 
novel  will  prove ;  in  a  series  of  letters  by  differ- 
ent hands,  one  gains  all  the  vitality  of  direct  dis- 
course, with  the  advantages  of  a  varied  com- 
pany, any  one  of  whom  may  meet  a  tragic  end. 
It  is  rather  interesting  to  remember  that  our 
first  three  professional  novelists  adopted  in 
their  respective  masterpieces  the  three  different 
styles  of  fiction.  Defoe  had  Eobinson  Crusoe 
tell  his  own  story;  Eichardson  developed  the 
character  of  Clarissa  in  a  series  of  letters ;  and 
Fielding  wrote  the  '* history"  of  Tom  Jones. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  47 

We  have  here  an  interesting  comparison  of  three 
great  artists  at  work.  I  suppose  that  if  most 
critics  were  asked  to  state  a  preference,  they 
would  say,  *^The  greatest  of  these  is  Fielding.'' 
If  they  were  asked  to  name  the  least  didactic, 
once  more  they  would  say  Fielding.  Yet  I  be- 
lieve that  the  art  of  Defoe  and  Kichardson  has 
more  aloofness,  more  objectivity,  more  severity 
and  more  sincerity  than  the  art  of  Fielding ;  and 
that  however  anxious  Defoe  and  Eichardson 
may  have  been  to  strengthen  the  forces  of  con- 
ventional morality,  however  '* preachy"  they 
may  have  been  by  nature,  their  two  masterpieces 
are  distinctly  less  didactic  than  Tom  Jones, 
For  the  method  according  to  which  Robinson 
and  Clarissa  were  written  forbade  the  intrusion 
of  the  author;  whereas  Fielding,  by  adopting 
the  scheme  most  popular  among  his  successors, 
gave  himself  full  liberty  to  interpose  in  the 
story,  to  comment  on  its  progress,  on  the  char- 
acters, on  life  in  general;  in  doing  this,  he  es- 
tablished a  bad  precedent  in  English  fiction ;  for 
English  novelists  have  been  notable  for  didactic 
and  sentimental  interruptions  in  their  narra- 


48  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

tives,  and  for  a  condescending  attitude  toward 
their  readers;  both  of  which  habits  aid  in  de- 
stroying the  illusion  and  lead  to  downright  in- 
sincerity. 

Enormous  is  the  difference  between  Eichard- 
son's  prefaces  and  Kichardson's  novels.  His 
prefaces  are  like  the  rhetorical  and  tedious  pre- 
liminary remarks  delivered  by  the  lecturer  while 
the  lights  are  on ;  and  we  begin  the  first  chapter 
with  the  same  relief  and  expectancy  that  the 
audience  greet  the  extinction  of  the  lamps  and 
the  language,  and  see  the  snow-capped  mountain 
leap  into  view.  For  however  the  orator  may 
rave  and  moralise  about  the  mountain,  the 
mountain  itself  is  objective.  The  moment  Eich- 
ardson  leaves  his  damnable  faces  and  begins, 
he  is  an  absolute  artist.  No  novel  that  I  can 
think  of  has  a  more  direct  opening  than  Pamela; 
the  attention  of  the  reader  is  instantly  captured ; 
and  in  the  first  paragraph  both  the  heroine  and 
villain  are  presented.  At  the  end  of  the  pref- 
ace, Eichardson  withdraws  from  the  story  — 
even  as  the  alloy  left  Browning's  famous  ring 
with  one  spirt  of  the  acid.    If  we  did  not  know 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  49 

the  greatness  of  Richardson  the  novelist,  Rich- 
ardson the  preacher  would  block  the  way.  Let 
us  compare  the  opening  sentences  of  the  pref- 
ace to  Pamela  with  the  first  words  of  the  novel. 

If  to  Divert  and  Entertain,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  Instruct  and  Improve  the  Minds  of  the  Youth  of 
both  Sexes: 

//  to  inculcate  Religion  and  Morality  in  so  easy  and 
agreeable  a  manner,  as  shall  render  them  equally  de- 
lightful and  profitable : 

//  to  set  forth  in  the  most  exemplary  Lights,  the 
Parental,  the  Filial,  and  the  Social  Duties: 

(All  this  is  followed  by  seven  other  ifs.) 
We  turn  to  the  first  page  of  the  story. 

Dear  Father  and  Mother, — I  have  great  trouble, 
and  some  comfort,  to  acquaint  you  with.  The  trouble 
is,  that  my  good  lady  died  of  the  illness  I  mentioned 
to  you,  and  left  us  all  much  grieved  for  the  loss  of 
her;  for  she  was  a  dear  good  lady,  and  kind  to  all 
us  her  servants.  Much  I  feared,  that  as  I  was  taken 
by  her  ladyship  to  wait  upon  her  person,  I  should  be 
quite  destitute  again,  and  forced  to  return  to  you  and 
my  poor  mother,  who  have  enough  to  do  to  maintain 
yourselves;  and,  as  my  lady's  goodness  had  put  me 
to  write  and  cast  accounts,  and  made  me  a  little  ex- 
pert at  my  needle,  and  otherwise  qualified  above  my 
degree,  it  was  not  every  family  that  could  have  found 


50  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

a  place  that  your  poor  Pamela  was  fit  for:  but  God, 
whose  graeiousness  to  us  we  have  so  often  experienced 
at  a  pinch,  put  it  into  my  good  lady's  heart  on  her 
death-bed,  just  an  hour  before  she  expired,  to  recom- 
mend to  my  young  master  all  her  servants,  one  by 
one ;  and  when  it  came  to  my  turn  to  be  recommended 
(for  I  was  sobbing  and  crying  at  her  pillow),  she 
could  only  say.  My  dear  son ! — and  so  broke  off  a  little ; 
and  then  recovering — Remember  my  poor  Pamela — 
And  these  were  some  of  her  last  words!  Oh,  how 
my  eyes  run — don't  wonder  to  see  the  paper  so  blotted. 

After  another  paragraph,  she  signs  the  letter, 
and  then  adds  a  postscript : 

I  have  been  scared  out  of  my  senses ;  for  just  now, 
as  I  was  folding  up  this  letter  in  my  late  lady 's  dress- 
ing-room, in  comes  my  young  master!  Good  sirs! 
how  was  I  frightened!  I  went  to  hide  the  letter  in 
my  bosom;  and  he,  seeing  me  tremble,  said,  smiling, 
**To  whom  have  you  been  writing,  Pamela?"  etc. 

Eichardson  felt  the  necessity  of  writing  apol- 
ogies for  his  great  works  of  fiction.  But  his 
apologies  are  written  in  a  cramped  and  intoler- 
ably formal  style,  full  of  canting  generalities. 
The  instant  he  begins  his  story,  it  is  as  though 
he  threw  off  a  mask,  resumed  his  natural  voice, 
and  narrated  without  any  didactic  ardour.    For 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  51 

the  letters  in  the  story  seldom  begin  with  gen- 
eralities, but  are  intensely  concrete  and  intensely 
dramatic.  The  difference  between  the  tone  of 
the  prefaces  and  the  tone  of  the  story  is  like  the 
change  in  many  a  parson's  voice  when  he  has 
finished  the  grace  before  meat,  and  begins  to 
talk  about  the  weather. 

The  immense  length  of  Eichardson's  novels 
is  part  of  his  scheme,  and  yet  he  does  remind 
us  of  the  after-dinner  speaker  who  was  pleas- 
antly introduced  by  the  toastmaster  as  an  ora- 
tor of  excellent  initiative,  but  totally  lacking  in 
terminal  facilities.  I  sometimes  think  that  his 
novels  were  not  meant  to  be  read  by  individuals 
but  by  dynasties  and  generations;  the  grand- 
father puts  in  a  bookmark  and  dies,  and  his  ma- 
ture son  takes  up  the  burden  at  that  point. 
Yet  the  proof  that  Richardson  was  correct  in  his 
proportions  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  every  at- 
tempt to  abridge  his  novels  has  been  a  failure. 
Much  better  never  to  read  Clarissa  than  to  read 
it  clipped.  Its  length  is  an  essential  feature  of 
the  plot.  Richardson  had  the  genius  for  expan- 
sion shown  by  Robert  Browning  in  the  Ring  and 


52  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

the  Book;  there  is  more  than  one  close  analogy 
between  Clarissa  and  that  epic.  The  whole 
story  can  be  told  in  a  dozen  lines ;  but  in  each 
case  the  author  has  expanded  it  into  volumes. 
There  is  not  now  any  interest  of  suspense ;  the. 
poet  gave  the  whole  plot  away  at  the  start,  and 
every  modern  reader  knows  what  happened  to 
Clarissa,  The  object  of  the  artist  in  each  case 
was  complete  psychological  analysis;  which 
could  not  have  been  achieved  except  by  accumu- 
lation of  detail.  Eichardson  is  the  originator 
of  the  psychological  novel;  and  in  two  respects 
he  has  never  been  surpassed — in  the  tireless  pa- 
tience of  his  analysis,  and  in  his  unflinching 
march  toward  the  inevitable  tragic  close. 


CHAPTER  m 

FIELDING,   SMOLLETT,   STEENE 

Popularity  and  immortality — the  reason  why  Richard- 
son's Continental  fame  exceeded  Fielding's — effect  of  the 
personal  essay — the  insincerity  of  Fielding — its  bad  in- 
fluence on  the  English  novel — Fielding's  didacticism — his 
humour — comic  men  and  tragic  women — sensational  titles  to 
novels — Smollett  the  naturalist — Dr.  Johnson  and  Rasselas 
— Goldsmith — the  personality  of  Sterne — the  sentimental 
novel  in  the  eighteenth  century — the  sentimental  novel  in 
the  twentieth  century. 

It  is  a  common  and  pathetic  delusion  of  unpop- 
ular writers  to  believe  that  at  their  death  their 
works  will  not  follow  them,  but  will  remain  to 
charm  ** millions  yet  unborn."  Unfortunately 
for  this  faith,  which  has  been  the  solace  and  the 
stimulus  of  many  fictionists,  the  fact  is  that 
there  has  never  been  a  great  English  novelist 
who  was  not  popular  in  his  own  lifetime.  The, 
world  often  runs  after  false  gods,  but  it  seldom 
neglects  true  deities.  What  revealing  element 
is  there  in  true  works  of  genius  that  makes  their 

63 


,54  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

transcendent  merit  so  instantly  manifest  to 
thousands  of  uncultivated  people?  Sometimes 
it  seems  as  if  the  greatness  of  a  literary  work 
were  as  unmistakable — as  immediately  clear — 
as  the  size  of  a  tall  man.  An  astronomer  knows 
more  about  stars  than  the  man  in  the  street; 
but  the  superior  brilliance  of  a  star  of  the  first 
magnitude  is  as  evident  to  the  untrained  eyes 
as  to  the  expert.  When  the  object  judged  is 
really  important,  future  generations  do  little 
more  than  ratify  contemporary  opinion.  No 
one  has  ever  improved  on  Ben  Jonson's  criti- 
cism of  Shakespeare,  of  Dryden's  appraisal  of 
Milton.  Defoe,  Swift,  and  Eichardson  were  as 
much  admired  by  their  contemporaries,  and  for 
precisely  the  same  reasons,  as  they  are  praised 
to-day. 

The  London  success  of  Pamela  and  Clarissa 
is  therefore  not  in  the  least  surprising;  but  it 
is  rather  remarkable  that  they  should  have 
aroused  such  ecstatic  wonder  among  the  French, 
that  they  should  have  thrilled  three  men  so  dif- 
ferent as  Diderot,  the  Abbe  Prevost  and  Eous- 
seau,  and  should  have  proved  to  be  an  actual 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  55 

contributory  force  to  the  French  Eevolution. 
One  reason  why  Richardson  was  so  much  more 
popular  on  the  Continent  than  Fielding,  was  be- 
cause Eichardson  lost  nothing  in  translation; 
Fielding  lost  irreparably.  You  can  translate  a 
story;  you  cannot  translate  a  style.  For  the 
same  reason,  Cooper  has  been  a  hundred  times 
more  widely  read  in  Europe  than  Hawthorne; 
the  wonderful  grace,  distinction,  and  shy  aus- 
terity of  Hawthorne's  language  vanish  in  a 
translation;  whereas  every  time  you  translate 
Cooper,  you  improve  him.  He  was  a  marvel- 
lous romancer,  with  a  good  story,  fascinating 
characters,  and  bad  style;  so  that  I  have  al- 
ways believed  that  the  French,  the  Germans,  the 
Poles,  the  Russians  really  have  a  finer  collec- 
tion of  Leather-Stocking  Tales  than  the  Ameri- 
cans. 

Fielding,  like  his  disciple  Thackeray,  was  a 
natural-born  humourist,  witJi  a  sure  instinct  t'or 
burlesque.  To  him  Richardson  was  as  intoler- 
able  as  were  the  Puritans  to  the  Cavaliers.  For 
over  ten  years  Fielding  had  been  having  a  merry 
time  with  stage  burlesque  when  Pamela  ap- 


56  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

peared;  its  prodigious  success  aroused  every 
fibre  of  opposition  in  his  soul,  for  to  him  it  rep- 
resented smug,  canting  hypocrisy — the  religion 
of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees.  We  may  rejoice 
that  it  stung  him  into  creative  composition ;  al- 
though he  was  of  course  constitutionally  inca- 
pable of  appreciating  either  Eichardson's  artis- 
tic merits  or  his  immense  significance. 

Although  the  Character  Book  and  the 
Periodical  Essay  were  the  parents  of  the  Eng- 
lish novel,  a  third  species  of  literature  seems 
to  have  had  a  powerful  influence  on  Fielding, 
and  still  more  on  Fielding's  successor,  Sterne. 
This  was  the  Personal  Essay,  a  peculiarly  in- 
dividual kind  of  writing,  totally  different  from 
critical  essays  like  Matthew  Arnold's  and  from 
reflective  essays  on  abstract  themes,  like  Bacon's 
or  Emerson's.  It  is  an  intimate,  confessional 
style  of  composition,  where  the  writer  takes  the 
reader  completely  into  his  confidence,  and  talks 
as  if  to  only  one  listener ;  talks,  too,  about  things 
often  essentially  trivial,  and  yet  making  them 
for  the  moment  interesting  by  the  charm  of  the 
speaker's  manner.    The  first  great  master  of 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  57 

this  school  remains  supreme  and  unapproach- 
able— Montaigne,  a  universal  favourite  with 
lovers  of  books.  Burton  *s  Anatomy  of  Melan- 
choly is  a  kind  of  monstrous  personal  essay; 
the  species  was  immortally  illustrated  in  the 
seventeenth  century  by  Cowley,  by  Browne  in 
the  whimsical  and  fantastic  Garden  of  Cyrus, 
by  Tom  Fuller  in  Good  Thoughts  in  Bad  Times; 
and  some  of  the  papers  in  the  Tatler,  Spectator, 
and  Guardian  could  be  classed  in  this  group. 
No  literature  we  have  is  more  self-conscious 
than  this;  and  of  all  eighteenth-century  novel- 
ists, none  was  more  self-conscious  than  Henry 
Fielding. 

In  his  first  novel,  Joseph  Andrews  (1742),  he 
was  not  content  with  writing  a  general  and  (to 
me)  rather  tedious  introduction  to  the  whole 
work;  three  of  the  four  books  into  which  the 
story  is  divided  are  respectively  introduced  with 
a  short  personal  essay.  This  custom  was  con- 
tinued in  Tom  Jones;  and  however  charming, 
witty,  and  satirical  they  may  be,  they  break  the 
continuity  of  the  narrative,  destroy  the  illusion, 
and  disconcert  the  reader ;  it  is  as  if,  before  each 


58  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

act  of  a  great  comedy,  the  author  should  appear 
before  the  footlights,  and  condescendingly  ad- 
dress the  audience. 

It  may  seem  odd  to  accuse  Fielding  of  any- 
thing like  insincerity;  and  yet  these  side  talks 
with  his  readers,  these  constant  intrusions  of 
the  master  of  the  show,  are  not  only  funda- 
mentally insincere  from  the  point  of  view  of 
art,  they  established  a  bad  tradition  in  English 
fiction.  Far  too  many  of  our  British  novelists 
have  regarded  themselves  as  caterers,  whose 
business  is  to  tickle  the  palate  of  the  reading 
public;  and  they  have  followed  in  the  wake  of 
Fielding.  In  the  first  chapter  of  the  second 
book  of  Joseph  Andrews,  we  read,  **It  becomes 
an  author  generally  to  divide  a  book,  as  it  does 
a  butcher  to  joint  his  meat,  for  such  assistance 
is  of  great  help  to  both  the  reader  and  the 
carver.  And  now,  having  indulged  myself  a 
little,  I  will  endeavour  to  indulge  the  curiosity 
of  my  reader,  who  is  no  doubt  impatient  to 
know  what  he  will  find  in  the  subsequent  chap- 
ters of  this  book.'* 

This  attitude  toward  the  reader  was  faith- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  59 

fully  followed  by  many  Anglo-Saxon  novelists ; 
many  instances  could  be  given;  but  one  of  the 
best  echoes  of  Fielding's  personal  remarks  may 
be  found  in  the  second  chapter  of  Anthony 
Trollope's  Doctor  Thome i  **A  few  words  must 
still  be  said  about  Miss  Mary  before  we  rush 
into  our  story;  the  crust  will  then  have  been 
broken,  and  the  pie  will  be  open  to  the  guests." 
The  difference  between  sincerity  in  Eussian  fic- 
tion and  in  English  fiction  may  be  expressed 
by  saying  that  in  Tom  Jones  we  admire  the 
carefully  planned  and  well  executed  realism; 
in  Anna  Karenina  we  are  in  a  world  of  absolute 
reality. 

It  is  often  said  by  critics  who  should  know 
better  that  Eichardson  was  not  only  offensively 
didactic,  but  that  his  view  of  morality  was  low ; 
because  he  emphasises  the  rewards  of  a  moral 
life,  either  in  substantial  worldly  advantages 
or  in  sorrowless  immortality ;  whereas  Fielding 
was  never  consciously  didactic,  and  represented 
the  dividends  of  virtue  simply  in  increased 
greatness  of  character.  To  settle  the  truth  of 
these  statements,  let  us  read  what  Eichardson 


60  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

wrote  to  Lady  Bradshaigh,  who  was  not  satis- 
fied to  have  Clarissa  get  her  reward  in  heaven, 
but  preferred  a  little  earthly  felicity.  The 
author  wrote,  **  Clarissa  has  the  greatest  of 
triumphs  even  in  this  world.  The  greatest,  I 
will  venture  to  say,  even  in  and  after  the  out- 
rage, and  because  of  the  outrage,  that  ever 
woman  had. ' ' 

And  in  reply  to  the  statement  that  Fielding 
is  not  consciously  didactic,  but  is  willing  to  let 
the  moral  of  his  books  speak  for  itself,  we  have 
simply  to  read  the  first  paragraph  of  the  dedi- 
cation of  Amelia:  *^The  following  book  is  sin- 
cerely designed  to  promote  the  cause  of  virtue, 
and  to  expose  some  of  the  most  glaring  evils, 
as  well  public  as  private,  which  at  present  in- 
fest the  country." 

Fielding  speaks  more  persuasively  as  a 
great  humourist;  one  of  the  greatest  in  Eng- 
lish literature.  His  view  of  the  world  had  the 
immense  tolerance  and  profound  sympathy  of 
the  true  humourist,  along  with  keenness  of  ob- 
servation whetted  by  satire.  The  ground  qual- 
ity of  his  mind  was  humour.    In  Joseph  An- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  61 

drews  it  took  the  form  of  burlesque;  intended 
originally  as  a  parody  on  Eichardson  and  Col- 
ley  Gibber,  it  widened  into  a  broad  creative 
work,  retaining  the  burlesque  element  in  the 
scenes  of  rough  farce.  In  Jonathan  Wild  it 
took  the  form  of  irony,  irony  on  a  vast,  univer- 
sal scale.  In  Tom  Jones,  his  masterpiece,  it 
supplied  exactly  the  right  medium  in  which  all 
the  characters  lived,  and  moved,  and  had  their 
being,  besides  enabling  him  to  give  that  wonder- 
ful type-portrait  of  Squire  Western.  In 
Amelia^  it  furnished  that  deep  tenderness  in- 
evitably characteristic  of  great  humourists. 

The  never-drying  springs  of  humour  in  Field- 
ing's nature  gave  a  richness,  fruitiness,  variety, 
and  complexity  to  his  novels  that  one  misses  in 
Eichardson ;  and  yet,  had  the  author  of  Clarissa 
possessed  a  sense  of  humour,  he  could  not  pos- 
sibly have  written  a  work  of  such  detailed,  pro- 
found, and  prolonged  analysis.  His  mind 
would  have  reacted  on  itself,  and  he  would  have 
looked  upon  his  own  creations  ironically,  as 
Fielding  did.  Furthermore,  Fielding  was  es- 
sentially a  comic  writer,  and  Eichardson  at  his 


62  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

best  in  tragedy.  Once  more,  Eichardson  was 
more  successful  in  depicting  women  than  men ; 
Fielding  just  tlie  contrary.  Mr.  B —  and  Sir 
Charles  do  not  compare  for  a  moment  with 
Parson  Adams,  Tom  Jones,  and  Squire  Wes- 
tern; but  neither  will  Sophia  or  Amelia  live  for 
a  moment  when  placed  beside  Pamela  and  Clar- 
issa. Now  it  is  impossible  to  draw  the  charac- 
ter of  a  man  convincingly  without  a  sense  of 
humour;  whereas  in  the  portrayal  of  a  perfectly 
natural  woman  this  quality  is  not  necessary. 
Say  what  you  will  about  the  equality  of  the 
sexes,  man  is  essentially  a  comic  character;  and 
woman,  tragic. 

Fielding's  men  are  wonderful — ^being,  like  all 
real  men,  imperfectly  tamed  beasts.  Thomas 
Gray,  an  inveterate  reader  of  French  novels, 
was  advised  by  his  friend,  Kichard  West,  to 
read  the  new  story  Joseph  Andrews,  and  his 
criticism  after  doing  so  remains  true  unto  this 
day.  **The  incidents  are  ill  laid  and  without 
invention ;  but  the  characters  have  a  great  deal 
of  nature,  which  always  pleases  even  in  her 
lowest    shapes.    Parson   Adams   is    perfectly 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  63 

well;  so  is  Mrs.  Slipslop,  and  the  story  of  Wil- 
son ;  and  throughout  he  shows  himself  well  read 
in  Stage-Coaches,  Country  Squires,  Inns,  and 
Inns  of  Court.  His  reflections  upon  high  peo- 
ple and  low  people,  and  misses  and  masters, 
are  very  good.  However  the  exaltedness  of 
some  minds  (or  rather  as  I  shrewdly  suspect 
their  insipidity  and  want  of  feeling  or  observa- 
tion) may  make  them  insensible  to  these  light 
things  (I  mean  such  as  characterise  and  paint 
nature),  yet  surely  they  are  as  weighty  and 
much  more  useful  than  your  grave  discourses 
upon  the  mind,  the  passions,  and  what  not.'' 

Thomas  G^ray  combined  profound  scholarship 
with  a  hatred  of  pedantry ;  the  fact  that  his  fas- 
tidious mind  recognised  immediately  the  artis- 
tic dignity  of  a  truthful  portrayal  of  low  life,  is 
one  more  example  of  the  hospitality  of  his  soul. 
And  this  first  criticism  of  Joseph  Andrews  con- 
victs of  shallowness  persons  who  read  works  on 
philosophy  and  metaphysics,  and  scorn  novels ; 
for  a  great  novel  is  simply  a  profound  study  in 
the  concrete  of  what  philosophy  attempts  in  the 
abstract.    The  *' exaltedness ' '  of  some  minds. 


64  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

is,  as  Gray  says,  often  a  mask  which  conceals  a 
''want  of  feeling  or  observation." 

The  real  defect  in  Joseph  Andrews  was 
pointed  out  immediately  by  Gray,  just  as  he  saw 
its  greatest  virtue.  The  incidents  would  have 
been  better  managed  had  not  the  author  started 
with  the  avowed  intention  of  composing  a  bur- 
lesque; this  blemish  in  Fielding's  first  novel  is 
conspicuously  absent  in  Tom  Jones,  which,  ac- 
cording to  Coleridge,  has  one  of  the  three  great- 
est plots  in  all  literature.  In  Joseph  Andrews, 
the  basis  of  the  novel  is  not  a  story;  in  Tom 
Jones,  it  is.  Fielding  became  a  master  work- 
man ;  and  handled  the  intricacies  of  this  orderly 
narrative  with  impressive  ease. 

Ambitious  authors  who  hunt  for  sensational 
titles  to  attract  the  public  would  do  well  to  re- 
member that  the  majority  of  immortal  novels 
have  common-place  names.  In  Fielding's  mas- 
terpiece the  name  is  intentionally  common- 
place, for  it  might  equally  as  well  have  been 
called  the  History  of  a  Man.  Thackeray's  re- 
mark about  it  is  not  really  true,  and  if  it  were, 
it  would  not  reflect  much  credit  on  Thackeray. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  65 

Tom  Jones  is  meant  to  be  a  memorandum  rather 
than  a  model.  He  is  not  what  we  ought  to  be- 
come, but  what  too  many  of  us  are ;  and  the  real 
reason  why  men  and  women  are  so  fond  of  him 
is  because  he  is  a  perfectly  healthy  male;  as 
Mrs.  Atherton  would  say,  he  is  one  hundred 
per  cent,  masculine. 

With  environment  altered,  Tom  Jones  would 
be  a  faithful  portrait  in  the  twentieth  century; 
Sophia  Western  would  not  do  at  all. 

Coarseness  and  fineness  are  the  characteris- 
tics respectively  of  the  work  of  Smollett  and 
Sterne.  One  used  an  axe,  the  other  a  needle. 
Eichardson  was  an  analyst.  Fielding  a  realist, 
Smollett  a  naturalist.  Smollett  was  not  by  na- 
ture a  creative  artist,  as  Fielding  undoubtedly 
was;  he  was  a  man  of  fact  rather  than  fancy; 
and  his  experiences  gave  him  more  material 
than  inspiration.  He  was  a  physician  and  a 
sailor;  he  broke  into  the  ranks  of  the  novelists 
by  brute  force,  and  has  retained  his  position  by 
the  same  quality.  He  wrote  stories,  where  the 
travelling  hero  wanders  rather  aimlessly 
through  a  series  of  adventures.    An  excellent 


66  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

illustration  of  this  kind  of  novel  is  seen  in  1915 
in  Sinclair  Lewis  ^s  The  Trail  of  the  Hawk, 

His  first  two  novels  are  exactly  contemporary 
with  the  masterpieces  of  Richardson  and  Field- 
ing; for  Roderick  Random  appeared  in  1748, 
and  Peregrine  Pickle  in  1751.  The  immense 
vitality  of  these  two  novels  won  a  sure  place 
both  in  contemporary  favour  and  in  the  history 
of  literature ;  outweighing  glaring  faults  in  con- 
struction, and  many  crudities  and  excrescences. 
The  indecencies  of  his  books  were  patent  to 
every  one  except  the  author,  who  said,  in  the 
third  edition  of  Peregrine  Pickle,  **He  flatters 
himself  that  he  has  expunged  every  adventure, 
phrase,  and  insinuation,  that  could  be  construed 
by  the  most  delicate  reader  into  a  trespass  upon 
the  rules  of  decorum."  Writers  are  the  worst 
judges  in  the  world  of  the  morality  of  their 
works;  he  writeth,  and  wipeth  his  pen,  and 
saith,  **I  have  done  no  wickedness." 

Richardson  declared,  in  the  preface  to 
Pamela,  that  he  had  composed  the  work  **  with- 
out raising  a  single  idea  throughout  the  whole, 
that  shall  shock  the  exactest  purity,  even  in  the 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  67 

warmest  of  those  instances  where  purity  would 
be  most  apprehensive."  When  Vanbrugh  was 
attacked  by  Jeremy  Collier  he  said  he  had  never 
written  anything  that  the  most  virtuous  damsel 
might  not  keep  in  her  chamber  with  her  Bible. 
Perhaps  no  man  is  ever  quite  so  absurd  as 
when  he  is  defending  himself  from  a  just  accu- 
sation. 

Smollett  is  a  man's  novelist;  I  have  never 
heard  a  woman  praise  him.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  men  enjoy  buffoonery,  horse-play,  and 
rough  farce ;  women  not  only  do  not  enjoy  these 
things,  they  cannot  understand  how  or  why  re- 
fined and  educated  men  should  enjoy  them. 
Mrs.  Oliphant  could  not  comprehend  the  general 
praise  of  Burns 's  Jolly  Beggars;  and  after 
fruitless  speculation,  she  finally  reached  the 
wise  conclusion  that  the  difference  in  her  appre- 
ciation was  simply  a  difference  of  sex.  *  *  There 
must  always  be,  we  presume,  however  age  and 
experience  may  modify  nature,  a  certain  in- 
ability on  the  part  of  a  woman  to  appreciate 
the  more  riotous  forms  of  mirth,  and  that  ro- 
bust freedom  in  morals  which  bolder  minds  ad- 


eS  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

mire.  It  is  a  disability  which  nothing  can 
abolish.'' 

Men  often  laugh  at  women  for  their  interest 
in  what  seems  to  men  trivialities,  details  of 
clothing,  ** social  columns"  and  ** woman's 
page"  in  the  newspapers;  but  women  find  it  in- 
comprehensible that  a  great  scholar  like  Burton 
should  delight  in  the  coarse  repartee  of  the 
bargemen,  and  that  cultivated  gentlemen  should 
read  with  close  attention  two  columns  of  fine 
print,  consisting  of  statements  like  this:  *^At 
the  beginning  of  the  fifth  round,  Jack  ducked, 
and  delivered  a  jolt  in  the  slats." 

I  once  met  a  United  States  Army  lieutenant, 
a  gentleman  of  wide  reading  and  good  taste, 
who  told  me  without  the  slightest  doubt  the 
greatest  novel  in  the  English  language  was 
Humphry  Clinker,  Smollett  wrote  it  while  he 
was  dying,  and  it  is  notable  that  this  robust  and 
healthy  masterpiece  should  come  from  a  mor- 
tally sick  man,  though  a  hundred  years  later 
another  and  greater  Scot  brought  the  same 
event  to  pass.  Smollett  followed  the  scheme  of 
Eichardson  in  this  novel,  putting  it  into  the 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  69 

form  of  letters,  its  only  resemblance  to  his 
predecessor.  This  book  is  full  of  rich  coarse 
humour,  and  has  at  the  same  time  the  preserving 
quality  of  original  genius. 

To  read  Smollett's  novels  is  like  witnessing, 
from  a  safe  coign  of  vantage,  a  free  fight,  hear- 
ing resounding  whacks  and  resounding  oaths. 
For  Smollett's  heroes  do  not  talk  as  if  they  had 
been  no  further  than  Finsbury;  much  of  his 
humour  consists  in  his  language.  Why  is  it 
that  every  one  in  the  audience  laughs  when  the 
man  on  the  stage  says  **damn''? 

Critics  whose  zeal  for  parallels  exceeds  their 
knowledge  of  the  subject,  have  often  repeated 
the  saying  that  Thackeray  is  the  child  of  Field- 
ing, and  Dickens  of  Smollett.  The  considera- 
ble amount  of  truth  in  the  first  half  of  the  state- 
ment should  not  lead  to  any  acceptance  of  the 
second.  No  two  novelists  in  English  literature 
are  more  unlike  than  Smollett  and  Dickens. 
Of  all  our  writers  of  fiction,  Smollett  is  the  most 
heartless ;  he  had  a  gusto  for  life,  and  men  and 
women  amused  him  prodigiously ;  but  his  books 
show  no  tenderness  and  no  real  sympathy,  for 


70  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

if  he  had  possessed  these  qualities,  his  work 
would  have  been  more  complex.  Balzac  wrote 
the  human  comedy:  Smollett  wrote  the  human 
farce.  Now  the  one  absolutely  dominating 
characteristic  of  Dickens  is  tenderness;  he  had 
the  mind  of  a  man,  and  the  heart  of  a  child. 

Again,  of  all  British  novelists — with  the  pos- 
sible exception  of  Sterne — Smollett  is  the  least 
spiritual;  there  is  no  other-worldliness  in  Rod- 
ericJc  Random  or  Peregrine  Pickle.  There  is 
not  only  no  Christian  element  in  these  stories, 
there  is  no  religious  atmosphere  of  any  kind. 
Dickens,  on  the  other  hand,  is  one  of  the  most 
powerful  allies  of  Christianity  that  English 
literature  has  ever  produced.  The  whole  foun- 
dation of  his  works  is  the  love  of  God  and  the 
love  of  man. 

Dr.  Johnson  is  numbered  among  the  novelists 
as  Saul  was  among  the  prophets.  He  was  not 
exactly  fitted  to  write  so  concrete  a  form  of  lit- 
erature, and  the  wonder  is,  as  he  said  of  the 
woman  and  the  dog,  that  he  could  do  it  at  all. 
It  is  commonly  stated  (incorrectly)  that  he 
wrote  Rasselas  (1759)  to  defray  the  expenses 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  71 

of  his  mother's  funeral;  to-day,  could  such  a 
work  get  into  print,  it  might  conceivably  hasten 
the  funeral  of  its  author.  Eemembering  the 
spirited  beginning  of  Pamela,  it  is  instructive  to 
read  the  opening  sentence  of  Rasselas: — 

Ye  who  listen  with  credulity  to  the  whispers  of 
fancy,  and  pursue  with  eagerness  the  phantoms  of 
hope ;  who  expect  that  age  will  perform  the  promises 
of  youth,  and  that  the  deficiencies  of  the  present  day 
will  be  supplied  by  the  morrow ; — attend  to  the  history 
of  Rasselas,  prince  of  Abyssinia. 

It  is  much  easier  to  listen  with  credulity  to  the 
whispers  of  fancy,  than  it  is  to  listen  at  all  to 
the  history  of  Rasselas.  This  novel  remains  in 
English  literature  an  embalmed  corpse,  pre- 
served by  Johnson's  great  and  noble  name. 

The  Doctor's  volatile  friend,  Oliver  Gold- 
smith, had  much  better  success;  fiction  being 
really  his  natural  element.  The  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field (1766)  has  an  immortal  charm,  a  fadeless 
beauty.  Goldsmith  had  all  the  qualifications 
that  his  learned  contemporary  lacked;  a  truly 
creative  imagination,  great  facility  in  composi- 
tion, the  irresistible  humorous  tenderness  so 


72  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

characteristic  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Ire- 
land. In  literature  Johnson  was  a  super-dread- 
nought, Goldsmith  an  excursion  steamer.  Hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  happy  men,  women,  and 
children  have  loved  to  travel  anywhere  with 
Goldy.  So  far  as  I  know,  there  has  been  only 
one  discontented  passenger — Mark  Twain,  who 
said  that  any  list  of  books  for  reading  was  a 
good  list,  so  long  as  it  did  not  contain  The  Vicar 
of  Wakefield, 

Smollett  was  a  physician  and  Sterne  a  minis- 
ter of  the  gospel;  one  trained  in  science,  the 
other  in  sentiment.  Both  men  died  in  middle 
life,  but  literature  lost  little  by  their  early  dis- 
appearance. Smollett  had  apparently  given 
the  world  the  very  best  that  was  in  him;  and 
Sterne  would  not  have  completed  either  Tris- 
tram Shandy  or  the  Sentimental  Journey y  for 
the  quintessence  of  those  works  is  their  incom- 
pleteness ;  and  we  have  enough  of  both.  Sterne 
was  really  an  invalid,  and  the  finest  thing  in  his 
whole  life,  character,  and  career,  is  the  marvel- 
lous courage  he  showed  in  facing  his  own  dis- 
ease.   He  regarded  his  frequent  and  violent 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  73 

hemorrhages  with  ironical  humour.  It  is  im- 
possible to  understand  Sterne;  he  defies  both 
analysis  and  appraisal.  Professor  Cross,  in  his 
admirable  biography,  has  told  us  more  about 
this  man  than  was  ever  known  before,  giving 
us  at  the  same  time  an  accurate  picture  of  the 
times.    But  Sterne  is  elusive. 

Sterne's  nature  was  passive  rather  than  ac- 
tive. He  might  have  said  with  Keats,  *  *  Oh,  for 
a  life  of  sensations  rather  than  of  thoughts!" 
He  was  a  veritable  ^olian  harp,  for  the  winds 
of  passion,  fancy,  sentiment,  mirth,  and  pathos 
to  play  on.  In  sheer  invention  he  was  weak,  or 
lazy :  there  must  be  an  exciting  cause  from  with- 
out, either  in  some  street  spectacle,  or  in  some 
book  that  he  was  reading.  This  external  stimu- 
lus would  set  him  off  into  the  strangest  vagaries 
and  paradoxes.  He  was  both  irreverent  and 
immoral ;  the  coarse  explicitness  of  Fielding  and 
Smollett  changed  into  evil  suggestion,  refined 
wickedness.  Morally,  we  rate  him  below  almost 
all  other  great  English  novelists,  for,  as  Kos- 
tand  says,  *^The  sound  of  a  kiss  is  less  danger- 
ous than  the  silence  of  a  smile.'' 


74  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

In  sentiment  Sterne  was  an  epicure.  His 
extraordinary  sensitiveness  to  impressions 
made  him  instantly  responsive,  intensely  aware, 
and  as  changeable  as  the  wind.  With  women 
he  was  a  philanderer,  too  self-conscious  to  be 
deeply  passionate,  too  responsive  to  be  con- 
stant. His  books  are  the  echoes  of  his  reading 
without  being  dishonourably  plagiaristic ;  Kab- 
elais,  Cervantes,  Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melan- 
choly, and  his  immediate  predecessors  in  Eng- 
land are  all  threaded  into  that  crazy-quilt  in 
literature,  Tristam  Shandy. 

For  my  part,  I  find  Sterne's  humour  much 
better  than  his  pathos.  Whatever  he  may  have 
borrowed  from  other  books,  his  humour  was  his 
own,  subtle,  pervading,  and  constantly  giving 
the  reader  a  sharp  surprise.  The  quizzical 
mask  of  this  fantastic  parson  conceals  his  in- 
tention until  we  are  suddenly  and  palpably  hit ; 
and  much  of  his  humour  remains  unfathomable. 
For  what  Sterne's  thoughts  were  when  he 
looked  in  the  mirror  no  one  can  guess.  The 
epitaph  of  John  Gay  perhaps  comes  nearest  to 
a  soliloquy  by  our  Yorick. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  75 

Life  is  a  jest,  and  all  things  show  it: 
I  thought  so  once,  but  now  I  know  it 

The  difference  between  the  light  cynicism  of  the 
epitaph  written  by  Gay  and  the  terrible  indict- 
ment of  the  epitaph  written  by  Swift  is  just  the 
difference  between  the  man  who  regards  life  as 
a  joke,  and  the  man  who  regards  himself  as  the 
joke  of  life. 

Sterne's  pathos — with  the  possible  exception 
of  the  famous  starling — ^has  always  left  me  cold. 
The  ass  in  the  Sentimental  Journey  and  the  ass 
in  Tristram  arouse  my  respect  for  the  writer's 
ingenuity;  but  if  one  will  compare  these  in- 
stances with  the  brief  sketch  of  the  ass  in  Guy 
de  Maupassant's  Mont  Oriol,  he  will  see  the  dif- 
ference between  a  professional  sentimentalist 
in  fine  virtuoso  work,  and  the  profound  sym- 
pathy of  a  great  tragic  artist.  I  do  not  see  how 
any  one  can  read  that  page  in  the  French  novel 
without  tears. 

The  stream  of  Sentimentalism — enormously 
widened,  deepened,  and  accelerated  by  Sterne, — 
rose  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  Samuel  Eichardson  created  the  Sentimen- 


76  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

tal  Novel.  Shortly  after  the  appearance  of 
the  final  volume  of  Clarissa,  the  word  *^  senti- 
mental" was  high  in  favour;  so  much  so,  that 
on  9  January,  1750,  Lady  Bradshaigh  wrote 
directly  to  Eichardson  for  a  decision.  '*What, 
in  your  opinion,  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  sen- 
timental, so  much  in  vogue  amongst  the  polite,, 
both  in  town  and  country?''  Every  one  wore 
their  hearts  on  their  sleeves  in  those  days,  for 
daws  to  pick  at;  and  Sterne,  the  real  jackdaw 
of  fiction,  had  no  difficulty  in  putting  his  beak 
into  the  public  heart.  Eichardson  had  got  all 
Europe  into  tears,  and  those  were  golden  days 
for  the  sentimentalists.  A  learned  German 
professor  said  that  he  had  wept  away  some  of 
the  most  remarkable  hours  of  his  life,  *4n  a  sort 
of  delicious  misery" — a  phrase  that  exactly 
expresses  the  strange  happiness  felt  by  thou- 
sands of  readers  at  that  time.  Eousseau — the 
greatest  sentimentalist  in  all  history,  and  the 
most  influential  writer  of  the  modem  age — ^be- 
gan La  Nouvelle  Heloise  under  the  inspiration 
of  Clarissa;  this  in  turn  led  to  Werther  and  the 
whole  Sturm  und  Drang  period  in  Germany. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  77 

No  wonder  the  beginnings  of  the  English  novel 
are  worth  serious  study,  when  we  find  their 
profound  effect  in  such  movements  as  the  Wes- 
leyan  Eevival  in  England,  and  the  mighty  revo- 
lution in  France. 

Sterne's  Sentimental  Journey  was  begotten 
by  Eichardson,  though  the  grave  printer  would 
have  disowned  it;  and  a  flood  of  sentimental 
fiction  was  let  loose  in  England.  Those  who  are 
able  to  wade  in  such  lachrymose  literature  may 
read  Mackenzie's  Man  of  Feeling  (1771).  Its 
author  was  a  young  man,  and  he  followed  the 
fashion.  English  common-sense  and  English 
humour  were  both  too  strong  to  permit  a  long 
reign — or  shall  we  say  rain? — of  such  an  ele- 
ment. 

Although  the  Sentimental  Novel  could  not 
long  maintain  its  supremacy,  there  has  never 
been  a  period  of  English  literature  when  senti- 
mental novels  did  not  flourish.  The  most  strik- 
ing illustration  of  the  success  of  the  sentimental 
novel  in  England  in  the  twentieth  century  is  the 
prodigious  vogue  of  The  Eosary^  a  book  written 
by  the  wife  of  an  English  clergyman.    Unless  I 


78  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

am  mistaken,  over  a  million  copies  of  this  novel 
have  been  sold  in  England  and  in  America.  It 
is  an  admirable  illustration  of  the  school.  In 
America  the  immense  circulation  of  the  books 
of  Gene  Stratton  Porter  bears  positive  testi- 
mony to  the  love  of  Anglo-Saxons  for  the  Sen- 
timental Novel.  We  can  at  any  rate  say  of  this 
English  and  of  this  American  author  that  their 
works  please  many  thousands  of  respectable 
men  and  women. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY  ROMANCES 

The  silence  of  forty  years — the  English  romantic  move- 
ment— ^Longsword — Horace  Walpole,  the  faddist — Mrs. 
Radcliffe  and  Monk  Lewis — Northanger  Abbey,  the  bur- 
lesque— difference  between  women  in  1915  and  women  in 
1815 — Jane  Austen  and  Booth  Tarkington — climax  of  the 
romantic  movement  in  Walter  Scott. 

The  forty  years  that  elapsed  from  tlie  publica- 
tion of  Humphry  Clinker  (1771)  to  Sense  and 
Sensibility  (1811)  are  notable  for  the  absence 
of  good  fiction.  Not  a  single  first-class  novel 
appeared.  English  manners  were  mirrored 
and  satirised  by  Frances  Burney,  and  at  the 
very  end  of  the  century  Maria  Edgeworth 
coined  her  Irish  experiences ;  but  both  these  ir- 
reproachable novelists  are  faint  in  comparison 
with  the  great  geniuses  of  English  fiction  and 
are  growing  fainter  in  the  process  of  years. 

One  reason  why  no  good  novels  were  pro- 
duced during  this  period  was  because  the  mighty 
name  of  Eichardson  had  drawn  a  host  of  imita- 
te 


80         '        THE  ADVANCE  OF 

tors  in  his  wake ;  and  while  Eichardson  himself 
was  and  is  splendid,  imitations  of  him  are 
nearly  the  last  word  in  human  tedium.  An- 
other and  better  reason  is  seen  in  the  rise  of  the 
Eomantic  Movement,  which  gave  to  many  ab- 
surd prose  romances  immense  temporary  fame, 
but  which  produced  nothing  of  importance  be- 
fore Walter  Scott. 

For  the  first  fifty  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury the  classicists  and  the  realists  ruled;  the 
words  ^'gothic"  and  ''romantic"  were  in  bad 
odour ;  it  was  thought  plebeian  to  be  demonstra- 
tive ;  joyful  enthusiasm  and  sobs  of  grief  were 
alike  unfashionable.  Toward  the  close  of  the 
century  any  novelist  of  even  ordinary  ability 
could  strike  the  once  stony  British  heart,  and 
streams  of  water  flowed;  everything  mediaeval 
and  ''gothic"  became  a  fad;  and  wild  tales  of 
mystery  and  horror  were  mightily  cried  up. 

English  literature  is  instinctively  romantic; 
and  it  took  men  of  genius,  like  Pope  and  Swift, 
Eichardson  and  Fielding,  to  repress  and  shackle 
the  national  spirit;  just  as  in  France  it  took  a 
superman  like  Victor  Hugo  to  fight  with  any 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  81 

success  against  tlie  well-regulated  and  sober 
soul  of  Gallic  prose.  Toward  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  a  natural  reaction — which 
had  begun  in  a  variety  of  instinctive  and  uncon- 
scious ways — asserted  itself  against  the  tyranny 
of  classicism;  and  as  the  reaction  gathered 
force,  it  was  guilty  of  absurd  excesses.  The 
eighteenth  century  revolt,  which  turned  Eng- 
lish fiction  into  a  kind  of  nightmare  during  the 
last  ten  years,  had  its  parallel  exactly  a  hun- 
dred years  later,  in  an  exceedingly  lively  re- 
vival of  romance  which  reached  a  climax  in 
1900. 

One  supremely  valuable  thing — that  England 
had  sought  in  vain  for  centuries — came  near  to 
being  lost  in  all  this  hurly-burly ;  I  mean  a  per- 
fect English  prose  style.  The  mastery  of  prose, 
richly  illustrated  in  fictitious  narrative  by  De- 
foe, Swift,  Addison,  and  Fielding,  ceased  to  be 
characteristic  of  the  novel — ceased  to  exist  in 
the  novel.  Fortunately  pure  and  natural  prose 
was  kept  alive  by  Boswell  in  biography  and  by 
Gibbon  in  history. 

Although  the  impatient,  free  spirit  of  Smol- 


82  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

lett  had  found  the  limits  of  space  and  time 
somewhat  irksome,  and  had  in  Ferdinand, 
Count  Fathom  sought  a  world  at  once  impossi- 
ble and  fascinating,  he  can  never  rank  as  a  fore- 
runner of  the  romantic  movement  in  prose  fic- 
tion; for  he  was  a  realists  ^The  first  genuine 
historical  romance  of  the  eighteenth  century — 
the  first  earnest  of  Scott's  fiction — ^was  Long- 
sword,  by  the  Eev.  Thomas  Leland,  published 
in  1762.  This  book  to-day  is  unread  and  forgot- 
ten; but  it  ought  to  be  remembered  by  literary 
historians,  for  its  significance  is  as  great  as  its 
intrinsic  worth  is  small.  ■  In  plot,  story,  frame- 
work, setting,  characterisation,  this  little  book 
is  a  forerunner  of  the  great  romances  of  Scott. 
It  is  indeed  the  first  modem  romance  of  chivalry 
in  the  English  language.-  In  the  ''Advertise- 
ment," the  author  stated  that  ''the  outlines  of 
the  following  story,  and  some  of  the  incidents 
and  more  minute  circumstances,  are  to  be  found 
in  the  ancient  English  historians."  It  is,  like 
Ivanhoe,  sl  story  of  jousts  and  knightly  adven- 
tures; of  ladies  dead  and  lovely  knights.  Ex- 
alted constancy  between  man  and  maid  is  the 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  83 

basis  of  the  plot.  The  style  is  pneumatic,  but 
it  was  the  style  that  was  to  be  the  fashion  for 
fifty  years:  dare  I  quote! 

A  youth  who  seemed  just  rising  to  manhood,  of 
graceful  form,  tall  of  stature,  and  with  limbs  of  per- 
fect shape,  lay  sorely  wounded  upon  the  ground,  lan- 
guid, pale,  and  bloody.  Over  him  hung  one  in  the 
habit  of  a  page  [art  thou  there,  Truepenny?], 
younger,  and  still  more  exquisitely  beautiful,  piercing 
the  air  with  lamentations,  and  eagerly  employed  in 
binding  up  the  wounds  of  the  fallen  youth  with  locks 
of  comely  auburn,  torn  from  a  fair  though  dishevelled 
head. 

Clara  Eeeve  was  influenced  by  this  book,  and 
made  one  of  the  few  references  to  it  that  I  have 
been  able  to  find.  In  her  Progress  of  Romance 
(1785),  the  following  dialogue  occurs:  '*How 
is  that,  a  Eomance  in  the  18th  century?" 
'*Yes,  a  Romance  in  reality  and  not  a  Novel. — 
A  story  like  those  of  the  middle  ages,  composed 
of  Chivalry,  Love,  and  Religion."  After  some 
detailed  discussion,  the  remark  is  made,  **This 
work  is  distinguished  in  my  list,  among  Novels 
uncommon  and  Original." 

But  it  took  a  personage  of  more  social  pres- 


84  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

tige  than  the  Eev.  Thomas  Leland  to  set  the  pace 
for  romantic  fiction.  In  1764  appeared  The 
Castle  of  Otranto,  by  Horace  Walpole,  a  worth- 
less hodge-podge  of  gloom  and  tinsel  that  threw 
England  into  a  fever  of  excitement  and  is  more 
responsible  than  any  other  one  book  for  releas- 
ing the  flood  of  tales  of  mystery.  This  is  not  in 
any  real  sense  a  forerunner  of  Scott,  as  Long- 
sword  was;  for  it  is  a  ^^gothic,"  not  a  historical 
romance.  Horace  Walpole,  the  thoroughly 
sophisticated  man  of  the  world,  was  the  last  per- 
son on  earth,  a  priori,  who  should  have  written 
this  turgid  stuff ;  but  the  paradox  occurred  sim- 
ply because  "Walpole  was  a  man  of  fashion — 
of  fads  rather  than  fancies — and  the  new  ro- 
manticism was  in  the  air.  Just  as  a  conserv- 
ative person  will  wear  flaunting  and  pictur- 
esque garments  if  they  are  the  *  latest  thing," 
so  authors  and  artists — ^whose  real  nature  might 
be  inclined  even  to  cynical  criticism — ^will  some- 
times be  the  first  to  scent  the  new  movement, 
and  start  a  whole  pack  in  the  hue  and  cry.  The 
fact  that  Horace  Walpole  wrote  The  Castle  of 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  85 

Otranto  is  the  surest  evidence  of  the  approach- 
ing reign  of  Eomanticism.   .. 

The  analogy  between  architecture  and  litera- 
ture is  a  sound  one;  and  as  Horace  Walpole 
had  drawn  the  attention  of  London  society  to 
his  ^^ Gothic  Castle''  at  Strawberry  Hill,  so  now 
he  captured  them  anew  with  his  Gothic  romance, 
written  in  a  style  that  would  have  made  Quin- 
tilian  stare  and  gasp.  It  had  its  origin  in  a 
dream — **a  very  natural  dream  for  a  head  like 
mine  filled  with  Gothic  story" — and  he  began 
to  write  ''without  knowing  in  the  least  what  I 
intended  to  say  or  relate."  In  the  original 
edition  he  pretended  that  it  was  a  translation 
of  an  old  romance  that  he  had  found,  but  the 
sudden  popularity  of  the  work  caused  him  to 
acknowledge  the  authorship  in  the  second  print- 
ing, where  his  preface  contains  a  significant 
statement.  *'It  was  an  attempt  to  blend  the 
two  kinds  of  romance,  the  ancient  and  the  mod- 
ern. In  the  former,  all  was  imagination  and 
improbability ;  in  the  latter,  nature  is  always  in- 
tended to  be,  and  sometimes  has  been,  copied 


86  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

with  success.  Invention  has  not  been  wanting; 
but  the  great  resources  of  fancy  have  been 
dammed  up,  by  a  strict  adherence  to  common 
life."  This  last  sentence  shows  that  the  ro- 
mantic sentiment  in  art  is  always  the  same; 
it  is  impatient  of  the  bolts  and  bars  of  ex- 
perience, unwilling  to  submit  either  to  rules  of 
authority  or  to  tests  of  fact,  and  wants  a  free 
hand. 

Even  more  remarkable  than  "Walpole's 
authorship  of  such  a  story  is  Gray's  critical  ad- 
miration of  it;  and  this  once  more  can  be  ex- 
plained only  by  remembering  that  Thomas 
Gray,  with  all  his  shyness,  with  all  his  fastidious 
scholarship,  had  completely  surrendered  to  the 
new  Romantic  Movement.  His  unbounded  ad- 
miration for  the  first  fragments  of  Ossian 
(1760)  made  him  an  easy  target,  even  for  so 
poor  a  shot  as  Walpole ;  for  he  welcomed  at  this 
time  everything  in  literature  that  savoured  of 
*'wildness."  He  had  seen  the  manuscript,  and 
advised  his  friend  to  print  it ;  and  when  the  book 
appeared,  he  wrote  to  Walpole  that  it  made  peo- 
ple cry  and  afraid  to  go  to  bed  o '  nights.    Thus 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  87 

it  produced  the  exact  effect  intended  by  all  the 
works  of  this  school — tears  and  terror — a  com- 
bination of  the  school  of  sentiment  with  the 
school  of  mystery. 

Tales  that  were  meant  to  be  thrilling  now  be- 
gan to  multiply ;  and  we  read  to-day  with  a  smile 
what  our  ancestors  read  with  rising  hair. 
Familiarity  breeds  contempt;  and  this  is  par- 
ticularly true  of  ghosts.  They  must  not  appear 
too  often  or  in  too  large  numbers.  But  the 
thirst  of  the  public  for  the  uncanny  had  been 
aroused,  and  the  main  business  of  the  second 
and  third  rate  novelists  was  then,  even  as  it  is 
now,  to  satisfy  a  thirst.  Clara  Eeeve's  Old 
English  Baron  (1777),  Ann  Eadcliffe's  Mys- 
teries of  Udolpho  (1794),  and  M.  G.  Lewis's 
The  Monk  (1795)  are  progressive  examples  of 
the  fashion.  Although  not  one  of  these  books 
is  worth  reading  for  its  own  sake,  they  were  a 
contribution  to  the  stream  of  English  fiction, 
and  an  evidence  of  the  never-dying  love  of  the 
English  for  romance.  While  great  realistic 
novels,  as  faithful  criticisms  of  life,  may  satisfy 
some  of  the  people  all  of  the  time,  and  all  of  the 


88  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

people  some  of  the  time,  they  camiot  satisfy  all 
the  people  all  the  time. 

There  is  another  reason  to-day  why  we  may 
be  grateful  to  these  mystery-mongers.  Just  as 
Pamela  was  the  mother  of  Joseph  Andrews,  so 
these  hobgoblins  gave  birth  to  another  immortal 
burlesque — Northanger  Abbey.  Jane  Austen 
was  only  twenty-two  when  she  wrote  this  story ; 
and  it  was  written  in  the  flood-tide  of  the  books 
it  ridiculed,  in  the  year  1798.  In  1803  it  was 
sold  to  a  publisher  in  Bath,  but  perhaps  the 
fashion  in  fiction  was  too  strong  for  his  cour- 
age, for  he  laid  the  manuscript  away;  years 
later,  the  family  offered  him  the  same  amount 
that  he  had  paid  for  the  return  of  it;  amazed 
and  delighted,  he  lost  no  time  in  accepting. 
Then  he  was  more  amazed  and  less  delighted 
by  being  informed  of  the  author's  name,  already 
famous. 

The  sense  of  humour  is  the  sure  antidote  for 
excessive  sentiment  and  excessive  improbabili- 
ties ;  as  is  shown  by  trying  melodrama  on  a  uni- 
versity audience.  A  huge  Gothic  galleon  of 
romance  may  be  successfully  torpedoed  by  one 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  89 

joke.  Many  literary  movements  have  found 
their  limit — even  in  the  most  patient  nations — 
by  finally  colliding  with  the  public  sense  of 
humour;  and  it  is  certain  that  if  the  sense  of 
humour  were  as  well  developed  in  the  Eussian 
people  as  the  sense  of  tragedy,  many  of  the  con- 
temporary abnormal  novels  would  disappear  in 
a  burst  of  foam.  Jane  Austen — the  most  clear- 
headed woman  who  ever  wrote  fiction — found 
the  atmosphere  somewhat  overheated;  and  the 
good-natured  laughter  of  Northanger  Abbey 
was  like  a  draught  of  fresh  air.  It  blew  out  the 
candles  and  brought  daylight  back  to  English 
fiction. 

It  is,  of  course,  a  good  story  well  told,  with 
real  characters;  but  its  purpose  was  to  attack 
The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho  and  the  whole 
fashion  of  romance  represented  by  that  work. 
The  anti-climax  of  the  washing-bill  is  a  youthful 
burlesque ;  but  not  content  with  this,  in  the  sixth 
chapter  we  have  Sir  Charles  Grandison  rated 
above  all  the  romances,  together  with  a  specific 
attack  on  Mrs.  Eadcliff e  's  tale.  Apart  from  the 
historical  interest  of  this  satire,  I  find  very  in- 


90  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

teresting  the  ironical  treatment  of  the  debutante 
of  1798;  and  I  think  a  citation  will  prove  that 
the  twentieth  century  debutante  has  not  radi- 
cally changed. 

Have  you  gone  on  with  Udolphof 

Yes,  I  have  been  reading  it  ever  since  I  woke ;  and 
I  am  got  to  the  black  veil. 

Are  you,  indeed?  How  delightful!  Oh!  I  would 
not  tell  you  what  is  behind  the  black  veil  for  the 
world !    Are  not  you  wild  to  know  ? 

Oh!  yes,  quite;  what  can  it  be?  But  do  not  tell 
me.  I  would  not  be  told  on  any  account.  I  know 
it  must  be  a  skeleton,  I  am  sure  it  is  Laurentina's 
skeleton.  Oh!  I  am  delighted  with  the  book!  I 
should  like  to  spend  my  whole  life  in  reading  it,  I 
assure  you;  if  it  had  not  been  to  meet  you,  I  would 
not  have  come  away  from  it  for  all  the  world. 

Dear  creature !  how  much  I  am  obliged  to  you ;  and 
when  you  have  finished  Udolpho,  we  will  read  the 
Italian  together;  and  I  have  made  out  a  list  of  ten 
or  twelve  more  of  the  same  kind  for  you. 

Have  you,  indeed!  How  glad  I  am!  What  are 
their  names? 

I  will  read  you  their  names  directly ;  here  they  are, 
in  my  pocket-book.  Castle  of  Wolfenhach,  Clermont, 
Mysterious  Warnings,  Necromancers  of  the  Black 
Forest,  Midnight  Bell,  Orphan  of  the  Rhine,  and 
Horrid  Mysteries.    Those  will  last  us  some  time. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  91 

Yes;  pretty  well;  but  are  they  all  horrid?  are  you 
sure  they  are  all  horrid? 

Yes,  quite  sure;  for  a  particular  friend  of  mine, — 
a  Miss  Andrews, — a  sweet  girl,  one  of  the  sweetest 
creatures  in  the  world,  has  read  every  one  of  them.  I 
wish  you  knew  Miss  Andrews,  you  would  be  delighted 
with  her.  She  is  netting  herself  the  sweetest  cloak 
you  can  conceive. .  I  think  her  as  beautiful  as  an 
angel,  and  I  am  so  vexed  with  the  men  for  not  admir- 
ing her! — I  scold  them  all  amazingly  about  it. 

There  is  nothing  meretricious  about  Jane 
Austen  except  the  alliterative  titles  of  two  of 
her  novels ;  she  stopped  that  business  after  her 
first  two  books,  and  we  read  and  reread  Pride 
and  Prejudice  with  such  enthusiasm  that  we  find 
no  difficulty  in  forgiving  the  author  for  its  chris- 
tening. For  this  work  is  one  of  the  world  *s 
very  few  impeccable  masterpieces. 

Miss  Austen  was  an  absolute  realist,  and 
each  of  her  books  is  a  profound  and  accurate 
criticism  of  life.  Declining  to  write  a  historical 
romance  she  wrote  to  her  foolish  counsellor,  *^I 
could  no  more  write  a  romance  than  an  epic 
poem.  I  could  not  sit  seriously  down  to  write 
a  serious  romance  under  any  other  motive  than 


92  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

to  save  my  life ;  and  if  it  were  indispensable  for 
me  to  keep  it  up  and  never  relax  into  laughing 
at  myself  and  other  people,  I  am  sure  I  should 
be  hung  before  I  had  finished  the  first  chapter.'* 
Although  it  would  be  false  to  say  that  her 
aim  in  writing  stories  was  a  didactic  one,  it  is 
nevertheless  true  that,  in  common  with  her  mas- 
ter Eichardson,  she  meant  to  improve  social 
manners,  and  her  novels  are  in  a  sense  books  of 
etiquette.  She  was  disgusted  with  the  foolish 
and  trivial  and  ill-written  letters  that  passed 
between  young  girls  in  society;  she  was  thor- 
oughly indignant  with  fond  fathers  and  mothers 
who  made  their  little  children  protagonists  of 
the  family  drama,  as  is  so  often  the  case  to-day ; 
she  could  not  endure  to  have  the  children's  con- 
versation quoted,  to  have  the  good  talk  of 
adults  lowered  to  the  level  of  infants  who  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  room,  nor  to  see  a  number  of 
men  and  women  surrounding  a  child,  and  talk- 
ing baby-talk  to  its  unconscious  face.  And 
while  she  probably  loved  Elizabeth  Bennet  more 
than  any  other  of  her  characters,  saying  play- 
fully of  her,  **I  must  confess  that  I  think  her 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  93 

as  delightful  a  creature  as  ever  appeared  in 
print ;  and  how  I  shall  be  able  to  tolerate  those 
who  do  not  like  her  at  least,  I  do  not  know, ' '  she 
perhaps  meant  Anne  Elliott  in  Persuasion  as 
her  ideal  of  what  a  young  girl  should  be. 

The  change  that  has  taken  place  in  a  hundred 
years,  not  merely  in  our  ideal  girl  but  in  the 
girl-ideal,  can  happily  be  illustrated  by  compar- 
ing the  Anne  Elliott  of  Persuasion  with  the 
Anne  Elliott  of  The  Guest  of  Quesnay,  written 
by  our  deservedly  popular  American  novelist, 
Booth  Tarkington.  Both  girls  spell  their  name 
the  same  way;  each  is  meant  to  be  attractive 
and  representative ;  and  the  similarity  of  spell- 
ing together  with  the  contrast  in  temperament 
made  me  feel  certain  that  the  comparison  was 
intentional,  until  I  was  informed  by  Mr.  Tark- 
ington that  it  was  wholly  unconscious.  The 
modern  girl  is  healthy  and  capable;  her  face, 
neck,  and  hands  are  heavily  tanned;  on  the  in- 
side of  her  hands  there  are  callous  mounds, 
caused  by  tennis,  golf,  and  steering-wheels; 
much  of  the  form  divine  is  revealed  by  modern 
clothes ;  her  language  is  an  epitome  of  the  latest 


94  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

argot ;  and  Mr.  Granville  Barker  says  her  walk, 
her  gestures,  and  her  manner  are  all  an  exact 
imitation  of  contemporary  musical  comedy. 
The  attempt  of  most  novelists  is  to  make  the 
heroine  attractive;  and  I  remember  reading  a 
review  of  Eichard  Harding  Davis's  Soldiers 
of  Fortune,  where  in  a  discussion  of  how  Hope 
Langham  rose  to  a  certain  emergency,  the  re- 
viewer exclaimed,  *  *  Hope  did  her  stunt  without 
a  whimper. ' '  Now  imagine  Sophia  Western — 
to  illustrate  from  a  very  male  novelist — doing 
her  stunt  without  a  whimper!  Imagine  Clar- 
issa driving  a  motor !  Why  is  it  we  never  hear 
the  word  ** Tomboy'' — so  common  in  my  youth 
— applied  to  the  modern  girl?  Simply  because 
all  girls  nowadays  are  tomboys.  The  late  Mr. 
Lounsbury  said  that  Cooper's  heroines  were  a 
combination  of  propriety  and  incapacity.  I 
would  not  say  that  the  modern  heroine  is  im- 
proper— ^but  simply  that  she  would  have  seemed 
so  to  her  sister  of  a  century  agone. 

For  the  fact  is,  that  just  as  there  are  styles 
in  clothes  so  there  are  styles  in  character,  in 
manners,  yes,  in  the  female  body.    In  the  twen- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  95 

tieth  century  thin  girls  are  all  the  rage,  so  that 
the  reputation  of  Kubens  as  a  painter  has  sunk 
to  such  a  depth  that  even  the  most  ignorant 
American  tourists  know  that  he  is  not  to  be 
praised.  This  has  not  always  been  the  case; 
Charles  Eeade  did  not  hesitate  to  give  the  leg 
of  Christie  Johnstone  a  **noble  swelP' ;  he  would 
pare  her  down  to-day.  The  modern  heroine  is 
thin  to  angularity;  when  meant  to  be  very  at- 
tractive, her  figure  is  called  *  ^boyish'';  and 
among  the  many  trials  of  women,  I  should  think 
the  necessity  of  changing  their  bodies  to  fit 
fashionable  requirements  was  not  the  least. 
Bad  enough  to  have  such  caprices  in  garments ; 
but  to  have  your  figure  out  of  style !  Still,  it  is 
not  so  bad  as  being  a  dog ;  for  if  you  are  a  dog 
and  are  not  in  style,  you  simply  are  not  born  at 
all.  You  cease  to  exist.  What  has  become  of 
all  the  coach-dogs  and  Spitz  dogs  of  my  youth  ? 
They  went  out  of  style  and  out  of  life  simul- 
taneously. 

Now  the  eighteenth  century  fashionable  girl 
was  most  gentle,  most  proper,  most  retiring. 
Her  chief  charm  was  delicacy;  and  if  she  had  a 


96  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

touch  of  tuberculosis,  she  became  irresistible. 
This  was  the  kind  of  young  woman  worshipped 
by  our  ancestors;  to  whom  the  modern  Booth 
Tarkington  girl  would  have  been  physically  re- 
pulsive, as  repulsive  as  an  aggressively  mannish 
woman  is  still.  Does  it  seem  incredible  that  a 
whole  generation  of  males  can  differ  from  an- 
other generation  in  their  admiration  of  women, 
and  in  their  susceptibility?  Such  is  never- 
theless a  fact.  Fenimore  Cooper,  whose  *  ^fe- 
males" are  a  mark  for  modern  satire,  was  sim- 
ply carrying  the  eighteenth  century  ideal  to  its 
limit.  America  has  always  been  more  conserv- 
ative than  England ;  perhaps  for  the  same  rea- 
son that  a  bourgeoise  is  much  more  careful 
in  her  ** company  manners''  than  a  duchess. 
Cooper's  heroines,  like  real  eighteenth  century 
ladies,  faint  with  the  greatest  ease  and  with  per- 
fect technique;  and  as  to  their  modesty,  our 
novelist  said  of  one  of  his  creations,  *^on  one 
occasion  her  little  foot  moved,"  although  **she 
had  been  carefully  taught  too  that  even  this 
beautiful  portion  of  the  female  frame  should  be 
quiet  and  unobtrusive."    Many  readers,  impa- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  97 

tient  at  such  drivel,  think  that  Cooper  must 
have  been  an  ass.  He  was  nothing  of  the  kind ; 
he  was  following  the  fashion.  If  he  should  re- 
visit the  glimpses  of  the  moon,  it  would  be  worth 
while  to  guide  him  to  Atlantic  City  or  Coney 
Island. 

Although  the  boldest  of  eighteenth  century 
reformers  would  have  been  shocked  by  our  mod- 
ern girls,  the  ideal  of  physical  incompetence 
and  shy  delicacy  did  not  maintain  its  supremacy 
without  a  protest.  And,  as  Professor  Cross  has 
shown,  the  first  real  rebellion  broke  out  in  that 
marvellous  monitor  of  youth,  Sandford  and 
Merton  (1783-1789) ,  by  Thomas  Day.  No  sickly 
females  for  him !  *  *  She  rises  at  candle  light  in 
winter,  plunges  into  a  cold  bath,  rides  a  dozen 
miles  upon  a  trotting  horse  or  walks  as  many 
even  with  the  hazard  of  being  splashed  or  soil- 
ing her  clothes  ..."  Jane  Austen  had  so 
much  common  sense  that  she  meant  her  Eliza- 
beth to  be  a  rebuke  to  the  over-fastidious.  *  ^  To 
walk  three  miles,  or  four  miles,  or  five  miles, 
or  whatever  it  is,  above  her  ankles  in  dirt,  and 
alone,  quite  alone!  wjbat  could  she  mean  by  it? 


98  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

It  seems  to  me  to  show  an  abominable  sort  of 
conceited  independence,  a  most  country-town 
indifference  to  decorum.'* 

Although  Jane  Austen's  robust  contempo- 
rary, Walter  Scott,  sometimes  made  his  hero- 
ines act  and  talk  in  a  way  that  seems  to  us 
insipid,  his  best  girls  are  full  of  vigour,  both  of 
body  and  of  mind.  Mr.  Saintsbury  had  the 
courage  to  name  five  nineteenth-century  women 
whom  he  would  have  been  glad  to  marry.  They 
are  Elizabeth  Bennet,  of  Pride  and  Prejudice; 
Diana  Vernon,  of  Roh  Roy;  Beatrix  Esmond; 
Argemone  Lavington,  of  Yeast;  and  Barbara 
Grant,  of  David  Balfour,  Most  of  these  girls,  ^ 
while  not  reaching  the  cover  standard  of  the 
contemporary  American  magazine,  are  active 
and  capable ;  and  among  all  of  Scott's  creations, 
it  is  notable  that  the  modem  critic  selected  Di 
Vernon,  the  all-around  athlete. 

The  Romantic  Revival  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury reached  a  tremendous  climax  in  Walter 
Scott.  By  virtue  of  his  immense  power  and 
range,  and  unlimited  creative  activity,  he  re- 
mains the  King  of  Romanticists.    He  belongs 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  99 

of  course  to  the  objective  side  of  romanticism, 
as  Byron  belongs  to  the  subjective ;  Scott  is  ro- 
mantic in  his  material,  Byron  romantic  in  his 
mood.  The  great  streams  of  Gothicism,  Chiv- 
alry, and  Mystery,  as  seen  in  architecture,  bal- 
lads, and  wild  fiction,  all  united  in  the  work  of 
the  Wizard.  His  achievement  in  prose  romance 
is  incomparably  better  than  that  of  all  his  imme- 
diate predecessors  put  together,  and  had  indeed 
no  equal  in  English  literature  since  the  time  of 
Malory. 

Scott  is  the  great  impromptu  in  fiction,  as 
Browning  is  in  poetry;  all  of  his  work  seems 
extempore.  Naturally,  therefore,  he  does  not 
serve  as  a  model  of  style.  Stevenson,  who  had 
nothing  but  adoration  for  Scott's  character,  and 
his  marvellous  inventive  powers,  never  forgave 
him  for  his  carelessness  in  manner.  ^*It  is  un- 
deniable,'' said  he,  *^that  the  love  of  the  slap- 
dash and  the  shoddy  grew  upon  Scott  with  suc- 
cess." Of  one  of  his  sentences,  Stevenson 
remarked,  **A  man  who  gave  in  such  copy  would 
be  discharged  from  the  staff  of  a  daily 
paper.  .  .  .  How  comes  it,  then,  that  he  could 


100  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

so  often  fob  us  off  with  languid,  inarticulate 
twaddle?" 

Mark  Twain,  a  careful  and  painstaking  artist, 
had  nothing  but  contempt  for  Scott  until  he  hap- 
pened to  read  Quentin  Durward,  He  had  been 
ridiculing  the  professors  and  the  critics  for 
their  praise  of  Sir  Walter,  insisting  that  the  so- 
called  great  man  not  only  was  insufferably  dull, 
but  that  he  did  not  even  know  how  to  write. 
Then  he  read  Quentin  Durward,  which  fasci- 
nated him  so  powerfully  that  he  playfully  in- 
sisted it  had  come  from  another  hand.  While  it 
was  impossible  for  Mark  Twain  to  write  any 
essay  in  criticism  without  grotesque  exaggera- 
tion, there  is  some  truth  both  in  his  condemna- 
tion of  Scott  and  in  the  exception  noted.  If  I 
were  condemned  to  read  all  of  Scott's  novels 
again  (a  fearful  punishment)  I  should  look  upon 
Quentin  Durward,  Ivanhoe,  The  Bride  of  Lam- 
mermoor,  and  Kenilworth  as  notable  mitiga- 
tions. Indeed,  for  sheer  dramatic  power.  The 
Bride  of  hammer  mo  or  is  one  of  the  greatest 
romances  in  the  world.  Many  years  ago.  Sir 
William  Eraser  was  engaged  in  a  warm  discus- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  101 

sion  of  Scott  with  Bulwer-Lytton.  Finally,  Sir 
William  proposed  that  each  man  write  on  a  slip 
of  paper  what  he  conceived  to  be  Scott's  mas- 
terpiece, at  the  same  time  expressing  the  utmost 
confidence  that  they  would  write  the  same  title. 
They  did ;  it  was  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor, 

Many  of  Scott's  novels  I  find  unreadable.  I 
cannot  get  through  the  underbrush.  Over  and 
over  again  I  have  attacked  Woodstock,  always 
in  vain,  and  I  shall  never  try  any  more.  What 
is  there  about  such  dreary  romances,  filled  with 
long  descriptions  and  interminable  meander- 
ings,  that  conquers  children?  When  I  was  a 
child,  I  read  Scott  and  Cooper  with  intense  in- 
terest, never  skipping  a  word.  I  rose  before 
dawn  to  read  Cooper's  Two  Admirals,  thinking 
of  it  with  anticipatory  delight  as  I  fell  asleep ; 
I  should  exact  favourable  terms  for  reading  it 
now. 

Scott,  like  all  the  great  Eomantics,  was  a 
mighty  man,  and  much  of  his  production  has  im- 
mortal life.  Somehow  a  writer  may  be  a  great 
realist  and  yet  not  impress  us  with  his  vi- 
tality;   may   indeed    seem    anaemic.    But    the 


102  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

great  Romantics — Scott,  Victor  Hugo,  Dumas, 
Cooper,  Sienkiewicz, — men  who  find  this  world 
too  cramped,  and  are  forced  to  make  their  own 
world,  where  they  can  have  elbow-room — these 
always  give  the  impression  of  endless  force. 
The  physical  exception,  Stevenson,  had  such 
amazing  mental  vitality  that  if  his  bodily  frame 
had  been  powerful,  he  would  probably  never 
have  written  a  line;  would  perhaps  have  gone 
to  perdition  by  the  shortest  available  route. 
Readers  who  knew  nothing  of  him  always 
imagined  him  healthily  robust.  The  other  Ro- 
mantics had  concealed  within  their  mortal  clay 
some  inextinguishable  fire ;  on  the  coldest  winter 
day,  Dumas  would  sit  by  an  open  window  with 
his  coat  off,  writing  novels,  while  the  sweat 
poured  down  his  face.  Victor  Hugo,  when  he 
ate  a  lobster,  ate  it  all,  insisting  that  the  hard 
shell  aided  his  digestion,  as  he  crumpled  it  in 
his  strong  teeth.  When  he  ate  an  orange,  he 
ate  it  as  a  boy  eats  an  apple,  skin  and  all.  The 
great  Romantics  are  supermen. 

And  this  vital  flame  blazes  forever  in  their 
masterpieces.    Why  is  it  that  so  many  of  our 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  103 

modern  romances,  which  sell  for  some  years  by 
the  hundred  thousand,  disappear  with  a  rapidity 
that  must  to  their  authors  be  disconcerting, 
while  The  Three  Musketeers,  Ivanhoe,  Notre 
Dame,  and  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans  are  being 
read  by  thousands  of  people  while  I  am  writing 
this  sentence?  It  is  because,  with  all  their 
carelessness  of  diction,  with  all  their  blemishes 
and  incongruities,  they  are  rattling  good  stories ; 
stories  that,  told  in  the  crudest  manner  about  a 
campfire,  would  hold  every  auditor  breathless; 
and  because  they  contain  characters  so  filled 
with  the  breath  of  life  that  a  reader  can  no  more 
forget  them  than  he  could  forget  his  most  in- 
timate friend. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   MID-VICTORIANS 

The  greatest  decade  in  English  fiction — hunting  in  couples 
— Dickens — ^his  popularity  in  Russia — Thackeray  the  senti- 
mentalist— George  Eliot — which  is  her  best  novel? — Anthony 
Trollope  and  his  twentieth  century  reincarnation — few  great 
women  novelists — the  Bronte  sisters — smouldering  passion 
— invention  and  imagination — Wilkie  Collins — Conan  Doyle 
—superiority  of  Americans  in  the  short  story — Irving,  Poe, 
Hawthorne,  Harte,  0.  Henry — contemporary  Russian  mas- 
ters of  the  short  story — ^reticence  and  dignity  in  American 
art. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  decade  in  the  history  of 
the  English  Novel  was  the  period  between 
1850  and  1860  inclusive.  The  list  of  titles  is 
more  impressive  than  any  comment  thereupon. 
David  Copperfield,  Bleak  House,  Little  Dorrit, 
A  Tale  of  Two  Cities,  Great  Expectations,  Pen- 
dennis,  Esmond,  The  Newcomes,  The  Virgin- 
ians, Scenes  of  Clerical  Life,  Adam  Bede,  The 
Mill  on  the  Floss,  Alton  Locke,  Eypatia,  West- 
ward Ho,  Peg  Woffington,  Christie  Johnstone, 
It  Is  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend,  The  Cloister 

104 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  105 

and  the  Hearth,  The  Warden,  Barchester  Tow- 
ers, Doctor  Thome,  The  Woman  in  White, 
Villette,  The  Professor,  Tom  Brown's  School 
Days,  John  Halifax,  The  Ordeal  of  Richard 
Feverel,  The  Scarlet  Letter,  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables,  Blithedale  Romance,  The  Marble  Faun, 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  In  order  to  find  a  parallel 
to  such  a  rapid  production  of  masterpieces  in 
English  literature,  we  should  have  to  go  back 
to  the  best  days  of  the  Elizabethan  drama.  The 
mid- Victorian  publishers  lived  in  the  golden 
age:  and  their  regular  announcements — ^which 
make  interesting  reading  in  the  advertising 
pages  of  old  weeklies — ^must  have  aroused 
golden  anticipations. 

In  one  hundred  years  from  Clarissa,  Tom 
Jones,  and  Roderick  Random,  the  novel  had  ad- 
vanced to  full  maturity,  with  the  complexity  and 
technique  that  accompany  the  complete  develop- 
ment of  any  form  of  art. 

Great  writers  often  come  in  pairs,  and  hunt 
the  public  in  couples.  Eichardson  and  Field- 
ing, Scott  and  Jane  Austen,  Dickens  and  Thack- 
eray,   Hardy    and    Meredith,    Tennyson    and 


106  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Browning,  Goethe  and  Schiller,  Turgenev  and 
Tolstoi,  Ibsen  and  Bjomson,  Hauptmann  and 
Sudermann — to  mention  only  some  of  the  mod- 
ern instances.  A  good  thing  this  twinning 
seems  to  be  for  literature;  genius  echoes  gen- 
ius, and  each  rival  spurs  the  other  to  his  best. 

Scott  died  in  1832;  and  within  four  years 
Englishmen  were  reading  Pickwick  Papers,  the 
inspired  writing  of  a  new  novelist,  who  had  two 
great  qualities  not  mainly  characteristic  of  Sir 
Walter — ^humour  and  humanitarianism.  Never 
was  a  man  more  kind  to  individuals  than  the 
great  Scot;  but  his  professional  work  resem- 
bles a  long  picture  gallery,  whereas  the  novels 
of  Dickens  make  one  glorified  stump  speech, 
abounding  in  sympathy  for  the  outcasts,  and 
shining  with  fun.  No  voice  like  this  had  ever 
been  heard  in  English  Literature ;  and  for  thirty 
years  after  his  death,  his  silence  was  almost 
audible,  till  he  returned  to  earth  and  dwelt 
among  us  as  William  De  Morgan. 

Of  all  British  novelists,  none  has  been  more 
purely  creative  than  Dickens ;  his  tears  flow  from 
the  great  source,  the  sentimental  novel  of  the 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  107 

eighteenth  century,  the  only  link  between  him 
and  Sterne;  but  the  pathos  of  Dickens  is  what 
the  twentieth  century  finds  least  admirable  in 
his  work.  He  regarded  his  own  childhood  with 
considerable  and  justifiable  self-pity;  but  his 
unfathomable  tenderness  is  shown  with  espe- 
cial force  toward  all  children.  The  sufferings 
of  little  boys  and  girls  made  to  him  an  irre- 
sistible appeal;  and  he  felt  that  the  death  of  a 
child  was  the  most  tragic  event  in  nature,  as 
Poe  thought  the  death  of  a  young  girl  the  most 
poetically  and  romantically  beautiful.  Dickens 
insisted  on  the  inherent  dignity  of  childhood — 
a  dignity  constantly  outraged  both  by  the  sel- 
fishness and  by  the  condescension  of  adults. 

Although  Dickens  had  an  enormous  influence 
on  the  literature  of  the  Continent,  the  only  for- 
eign novelist  who  resembled  him  both  in  genius 
and  in  temperament  was  Dostoevski.  The  title 
of  one  of  the  latter 's  stories.  The  Insulted  and 
Injured,  might  almost  be  taken  as  the  subject 
of  the  complete  works  of  both  writers.  Both 
had  suffered  terribly  in  earliest  youth;  both 
knew  the  city  slums ;  both  knew  the  very  worst 


108  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

of  which  humanity  is  capable;  both  loved  hu- 
manity with  a  love  that  survived  every  experi- 
ence; both  were  profoundly  spiritual,  intensely 
religious,  and  thoroughly  optimistic.  For  the 
great  artists  who  have  known  suffering  and 
privation  are  more  often  optimists  than  those 
whose  lives  have  been  carefully  sheltered.  The 
game  of  life  seems  to  be  more  enjoyed  by  those 
who  play  it  than  by  those  who  look  on. 

Tolstoi  and  Dostoevski  read  Dickens  with 
eagerness  and  profit.  Dickens  has  been  and  is 
to-day  more  popular  in  Eussia  than  any  other 
English  novelist ;  the  common  people  feel  their 
kinship  to  him  in  the  touch  of  nature.  In  one 
of  the  Siberian  provincial  jails,  where  records 
are  always  kept  of  the  prisoners'  reading,  the 
library  minutes  for  1914  are  interesting.  Of 
British  authors  in  Kussian  translations,  Dick- 
ens was  called  for  192  times;  Scott,  98;  Wells, 
53;  Wilde,  44;  Kipling,  41;  Shakespeare,  33. 

In  the  history  of  British  fiction,  Dickens  fills 
the  biggest  place,  contributed  the  largest  num- 
ber of  permanently  interesting  characters,  owed 
less  to  other  authors  than  any  other  novelist, 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  109 

and  would  be  the  one  I  should  keep  if  all  but  one 
had  to  perish.  No  other  writer  has  made  so 
great  a  contribution  to  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number ;  and  while  it  is  possible 
to  contemplate  the  history  of  the  novel  minus 
any  other  author,  we  simply  cannot  get  along 
without  Dickens.  The  extraordinary  succes- 
sion of  masterpieces  that  he  produced  with 
hardly  any  lapses  for  thirty  years  put  the  whole 
world  hopelessly  in  his  debt.  He  was  the  most 
creative  and  the  least  critical  of  all  our  writers 
of  fiction;  he  attempted  no  formal  essays;  his 
American  Notes  ought  not  to  have  been  written, 
and  his  Child's  History  of  England  would  have 
blighted  the  reputation  of  a  lesser  man.  It  is 
absurd  to  call  his  characters  mere  caricatures: 
he  turned  the  powerful  searchlight  of  his  mind 
into  many  dark  places,  and  his  persons  stand 
out  against  the  background  in  a  conspicuous 
glare.  But  if  these  people  are  not  true,  why  is 
it  that  all  observers  since  1840  are  continually 
pointing  out  persons  who  *^look  like  characters 
from  Dickens ' '  ? 
Although  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 


110  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

tury  saw  the  Novel  playing  successfully  the 
'role  of  life's  interpreter,  nearly  every  promi- 
nent writer  felt  bound  to  produce  one  historical 
romance.  Dickens  lacked  everything  but  imag- 
ination in  this  field,  and  to  me  A  Tale  of  Two 
Cities  is  the  poorest  of  all  his  stories,  with  the 
one  exception  of  Little  Dorrit,  As  soon  as  he 
had  shaken  himself  free  from  it,  he  wrote  one 
of  the  best  novels  in  English  literature — Great 
Expectations;  even  as  Stevenson,  flinging  aside 
St.  Ives,  produced  the  unfinished  masterpiece. 
Weir  of  Hermiston.  George  Eliot  also  failed; 
when  all  is  said,  Romola  is  a  work  of  construc- 
tion rather  than  creation,  more  ponderous  than 
splendid.  And  as  a  study  of  moral  decay,  it  is 
not  so  impressive  as  Mr.  Howells's  Modern  In- 
stance, Charles  Eeade  was  so  successful,  how- 
ever, that  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth  is  worth 
all  the  rest  of  his  works  put  together — I  wonder 
if  he  realised  before  he  died  how  immensely 
better  it  is  ?  And  it  seems  now,  as  if  Westward 
Ho  would  outlast  the  more  sensational  and 
formerly  more  popular  Hypatia,  For  Charles 
Kingsley  was  an  Elizabethan  by  nature,  and 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  111 

was  more  at  home  with  the  seadogs  of  Devon- 
shire than  in  a  joint  debate  with  Newman.  It 
remained  for  Thackeray  to  write  the  best  his- 
torical romance  in  our  language,  Esmond, 

This  book  is  almost  entirely  free  from 
Thackeray's  worst  faults:  his  sentimentalism, 
his  diffuseness,  his  personal  intrusions  on  the 
stage.  The  story  is  told  in  the  first  person, 
which  shut  out  the  author:  it  was  published  as 
a  whole  in  book  form  instead  of  being  dragged 
out  in  monthly  numbers;  and  it  is  a  narrative 
so  full  of  passion — real  passions,  love,  jealousy, 
lust,  revenge, — that  there  is  no  room  for  any- 
thing less  vital.  He  wrote  Esmond  at  white 
heat  in  a  short  time,  and  the  manuscript  shows 
few  corrections.  I  like  it  best  because  it  con- 
tains the  best  of  Thackeray — and  the  best  of 
Thackeray  has  not  been  surpassed  in  English 
fiction. 

Thackeray's  mind  was  more  critical  than  that 
of  Dickens :  he  was  a  natural-born  critic,  paro- 
dist, burlesquer,  commentator.  He  walked  the 
garden  of  this  world  and  his  novels — except  Es- 
mond— are  gigantic  commentaries  on  what  he 


112  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

aw.  Never  was  a  writer  less  of  a  cynic  and 
atirist  than  Thackeray;  no  doubt,  like  many 
people,  he  thought  he  was  very  severe ;  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  was  a  sentimentalist  and  a 
preacher,  who  loved  humanity,  saw  its  follies 
with  the  sharp  sight  of  the  humourist,  and 
wished  all  the  time  that  he  could  say  something 
to  make  his  readers  profit  by  his  personally  con- 
^^ducted  tours. 

He  was  a  chivalrous,  magnanimous,  tender- 
hearted, essentially  noble  character ;  no  English 
novelist  has  ever  better  deserved  the  grand  old 
name  of  gentleman.  He  confessed  his  sins 
against  art  like  a  man.  **  Perhaps  of  all  the 
novel-spinners  now  extant,  the  present  speaker 
is  the  most  addicted  to  preaching.  Does  he  not 
stop  perpetually  in  his  story  and  begin  to  preach 
to  you?"  He  really  missed  the  point  of  the  ob- 
jection to  this  practice.  It  is  not  that  we  are 
eager  to  hear  what  happened  next  and  want  no 
interruption:  it  is  that  these  interruptions  de- 
stroy the  illusion,  and  are,  from  the  artistic 
point  of  view,  deplorably  insincere.  For  this 
reason,  I  find  The  Newcomes  an  unreadable 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  113 

book.  He  wrote  it  frankly  for  cash,  and  said 
so. 

Of  the  three  great  mid- Victorians,  George 
Eliot  w^s  less  rich  in  natural  endowment  than 
either  Dickens  or  Thackeray,  but  wrote  with 
more  soberness  of  mind.  She  said  she  was 
neither  pessimist  nor  optimist,  but  called  her- 
self a  meliorist.  Be  this  as  it  may,  her  books 
were  all  written  in  shadow,  and  have  none  of 
the  abounding  cheerfulness  of  Dickens^  nor  the 
lambent  humour  of  Thackeray.  Her  humour,  of 
which  she  had  a  plenty,  was  grave  and  ironical ; 
no  one  has  better  depicted  middle-aged  women 
who  combine  vacuity  of  intellect  with  venomous 
selfishness.  In  fact  I  think  no  novelist  has  ever 
better  depicted  the  unloveliness  and  corroding 
force  of  selfishness. 

In  true  human  pathos,  her  Scenes  of  Clerical 
Life  were  a  revelation  in  English  literature. 
What  an  enormous  contrast  between  these 
depths  of  tragedy  and  the  eighteenth  century 
pools  of  sentiment!  The  restraint  shown  by 
the  author  emphasised  the  dignity  of  suffering. 
And  one  has  only  to  compare  young  Maggie 


114  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

TuUiver  with  Little  Nell  to  see  George  Eliot  at 
her  best  and  Dickens  at  his  worst.  The  con- 
stant attrition  under  which  Maggie  suffered  is 
more  painfully  real  to  us  than  NelPs  melodra- 
matic and  elaborate  preparations  for  the  tomb. 
The  Mill  on  the  Floss  leaves  the  tricks  of 
realism  and  enters  the  field  of  reality.  It  is  a 
noble,  permanent  example  of  the  psychological 
novel,  which  had  been  started  by  Eichardson. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  find  outside  of  Turgenev 
any  love  scenes  in  fiction  which  combine  less 
carnality  with  more  passion  than  the  scenes  be- 
tween Stephen  and  Maggie.  And  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  Turgenev  admired  this  book.  For 
once  upon  a  time  three  men,  Mr.  George  H. 
Lewes,  Professor  Boyesen  of  Columbia,  and  the 
Eussian  Turgenev  were  engaged  in  a  warm  dis- 
cussion as  to  which  one  of  George  Eliot's 
novels  was  the  best.  Mr.  Lewes  declared  for 
Daniel  Deronda,  the  husband  naturally  thinking 
her  latest  was  her  finest;  Professor  Boyesen 
voted  for  Middlemarch,  as  being  richest  in  con- 
tent ;  but  the  great  Eussian,  who  valued  correct 
analysis  and  profound  sincerity  above  all  other 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  115 

qualities  in  fiction,  gave  his  opinion  for  The 
Mill  on  the  Floss,  I  think  Time  is  on  his 
side. 

George  Eliot's  last  novel,  Daniel  Deronda,  is 
over-weighted  with  opinion  and  propaganda, 
and  is  visibly  sinking  beneath  the  surface  of 
literature.  I  wish  I  knew  how  many  people 
had  read  it  through  in  1915!  She  wrote  no 
more  novels,  and  I  do  not  think  she  could  have 
written  another.  The  best  scenes  in  this  book 
are  the  terrifying  conversations  between  Grand- 
court  and  Gwendolen,  which  I  have  always  sus- 
pected were  inspired  by  Browning's  poem,  M^ 
Last  Duchess.  The  refinement  of  cruelty  is  so 
truthfully  portrayed  that  one  shudders  as  if 
present  at  a  scene  of  torture. 

Anthony  TroUope's  Autobiography  is  more 
interesting  than  his  stories,  and  more  improb- 
able. There  has  never  existed  a  less  preten- 
tious artist.  He  tells  us  exactly  how  his  work 
was  done,  and  we  know  nothing  whatever  about 
it.  He  said  he  would  not  be  read  in  the  twen- 
tieth century,  but  he  is;  even  the  enormous 
amount  of  his  production — ^I  saw  an  edition  in 


116  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

eighty-eight  volumes — has  not  swamped  his 
reputation.  Hawthorne's  criticism  of  him  ac- 
counts for  his  permanence;  his  novels  are  just 
like  life,  some  of  them  being  so  dull  that  we  fly 
to  other  books.  No  one  would  dare  call  Trol- 
lope  a  genius,  and  he  would  have  ridiculed  such 
an  appellation.  It  is  rather  singular  that  this 
uninspired  Englishman,  in  a  grey  business  suit, 
is  so  much  more  conspicuous  in  the  history  of 
fiction  than  many  gesticulating  sensationalists 
like  Hall  Caine;  and  it  will  be  food  for  reflec- 
tion if  he  should  eventually  outlast  so  brilliant 
a  dandy  as  Bulwer-Lytton. 

Anthony  Trollope  has  had  a  curious  and  alto- 
gether charming  reincarnation  in  the  twentieth 
century  in  the  person  of  Archibald  Marshall, 
whose  novels  may  be  confidently  recommended 
to  admirers  of  Barchester  Towers,  Where  does 
Mr.  Marshall  get  that  skill — absent  from  Eng- 
lish literature  since  Trollope 's  death — of  rep- 
resenting ordinary  events  and  ordinary  char- 
acters, not  one  of  whom  is  wholly  good  or  wholly 
bad,  in  a  way  that  makes  the  reader  follow  with 
tense  interest,  unwilling  to  skip  a  word?    The 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  117 

trilogy  of  the  Clinton  family,  and  Ext  on  Manor, 
The  Greatest  of  These,  The  Old  Order  Chang- 
eth  are  good  stories  well  told — I  for  one  wish 
they  were  twice  as  long.  These  books  have  not 
got  the  '* punch/'  nor  any  **red  blood/*  nor  any 
lubricity  or  vulgarity.  Strangest  of  all  quali- 
ties, they  are  filled  with  charming,  decent,  well- 
bred,  kindly,  human  people,  so  that  to  read 
these  novels  is  like  visiting  in  a  good  home.  In- 
stead of  being  forced  to  associate  with  dull, 
coarse,  dirty  loafers,  whom  one  would  not  pick 
for  acquaintances  in  every  day  life,  the  reader 
is  brought  into  contact  with  extremely  attrac- 
tive men  and  women.  No  one  ought  to  quarrel 
with  Mr.  Marshall  for  his  principle  of  choice — 
since  readers  and  critics  who  prefer  to  spend 
their  time  in  the  slums,  in  the  antiseptically 
safe  way  of  realistic  fiction,  have  constant  and 
abundant  opportunity  to  do  so.  I  think  that 
it  is  more  difficult  to  write  any  one  of  Mr.  Mar- 
shall's novels  than  it  is  to  produce  the  vast 
majority  of  tales  dealing  with  criminals  and 
abnormal  villains.  And  our  contemporary 
TroUope  is  really  ''true  to  life";  for  the  world 


118  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

does  actually  contain  some  persons  wliom  it  is 
a  pleasure  to  meet. 

It  is  a  rather  curious  fact  tliat  in  the  history 
of  fiction  in  all  languages,  only  two  women  have 
risen  to  the  first  rank — Jane  Austen  and  George 
Eliot.  This  is  the  more  odd  because  the  art  of 
the  novel  is  to  a  certain  extent  imitative  and 
critical,  not  nearly  so  purely  creative  as  the 
art  of  musical  composition,  where  no  women 
of  genius  have  ever  appeared.  Although  not 
to  be  compared  with  the  two  names  I  have  men- 
tioned, the  three  Bronte  sisters  still  have  a  place 
of  their  own  in  English  literature.  Anne  now 
shines  only  by  reflected  light;  few  read  Agnes 
Grey,  and  none  would  read  it  were  she  not  the 
sister  of  Charlotte  and  Emily.  The  latter  had 
perhaps  the  greatest  natural  endowment  of  the 
three ;  and  Wuthering  Heights,  while  more  hys- 
terical than  historical  in  its  treatment  of  human 
nature,  has  at  any  rate  the  strength  of  delirium. 
It  was  written  by  one  who  had  passed,  like  old 
Dr.  Donne,  through  the  straits  of  fever — per 
f  return  fehris.  It  is  short-sighted  criticism  that 
wonders  at  the  mental  range  of  passion  of  a  girl 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  119 

shut  up  in  dreary  loneliness;  her  capacity  for 
expression  is  what  is  remarkable,  her  passion- 
ate intensity  exactly  what  one  might  expect 
from  such  stifling  repression.  It  is  ridiculous 
to  believe  that  a  woman's  passions  are  passive 
and  not  active ;  that  she  is  unaware  of  them  un- 
til some  man  appears  on  the  scene ;  or  that  even 
then  her  love  is  the  love  of  reciprocation,  that 
cannot  be  roused  independently  of  purposeful 
masculine  attention.  Such  ideas  may  make  a 
fancy  virginal  picture  pleasing  to  some  per- 
sons, but  they  are  exactly  contrary  to  the  facts 
of  human  nature.  The  recent  publication  of 
Charlotte's  love-letters  ought  to  open  the  ears 
of  the  deaf;  but  then,  if  they  hear  not  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  be  persuaded 
though  one  rose  from  the  dead. 

Emily's  narrow  bodily  existence  fanned  the 
flames  in  her  soul;  and  she  could  have  counted 
herself  a  queen  of  infinite  space,  had  she  not 
had  bad  dreams. 

Charlotte  Bronte  used  in  her  novels  her 
Yorkshire  and  her  Continental  experiences ;  but 
chiefly  when  she  wrote,  she  looked  into  her 


120  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

heart,  as  is  indeed  the  way  with  most  novelists 
of  distinction.  Most  novels  are  really  auto- 
biographies, and  did  we  know  as  much  about  the 
external  and  spiritual  life  of  all  writers  of  fic- 
tion as  we  do  of  Tolstoi's,  I  think  we  should  find 
often  an  equally  faithful  following  of  experi- 
ence, though  with  less  genius  for  recording  it. 
Charlotte  and  her  sister  Emily  wrote  novels  of 
revolt,  expressing  the  hatred  of  that  conven- 
tionality submitted  to  by  so  many  women  with 
such  inner  dissenting  repugnance;  for  conven- 
tionality is  such  a  tyranny  that  its  bonds  often 
become  galling  to  women,  every  one  of  whom 
has  the  love  of  adventure  in  her  heart ;  the  de- 
sire for  some  thrilling  excursion  of  the  soul. 
Men  of  desperate  valour  seem  to  appeal  to 
women  more  than  those  who  are  wise  and  pru- 
dent. No  woman  can  endure  a  man  who  has 
too  much  caution.  The  little  school-mistress  in 
Quality  Street  loved  the  *' dashing"  officer — 
loved  him  and  no  other. 

The  fiery  energy  of  Charlotte  Bronte  caused 
Jane  Eyre  to  attract  as  much  attention  as  a  con- 
flagration; it  blazes  still.    She  is  a  torch  in  lit- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  121 

erature  rather  than  a  fixed  star.  After  she  is 
extinguished  the  world  will  still  be  reading 
Pride  and  Prejudice  and  Silas  Marner,  To 
turn  even  now  from  Jane  Eyre  to  these  books 
is  like  passing  from  a  vivid  dream  to  reality. 

Professor  Brander  Matthews  has  somewhere 
or  other  called  attention  to  the  distinction  be- 
tween invention  and  imagination,  showing  that 
while  we  may  admire  the  cleverness  of  great  in- 
ventive ingenuity,  and  while  this  gift  may  be- 
stow upon  its  author  immense  temporary  vogue, 
it  does  not,  never  has,  and  cannot  place  him 
with  the  immortal  gods.  A  story  ought  to  be 
the  foundation  of  a  novel ;  but  a  novel  does  not 
become  immortal  through  a  good  plot.  An  ex- 
cellent illustration  of  this  is  seen  if  one  places 
side  by  side  Wilkie  Collins  and  George  Eliot. 
As  an  inventor  and  manipulator  of  plot  intrica- 
cies, we  knew  not  the  equal  of  Collins  till  Conan 
Doyle  appeared.  The  Woman  in  White,  Arma- 
dale,  The  Moonstone — marvellous,  indeed,  is  the 
construction  of  these  books.  I  sometimes  think 
I  have  never  seen  a  plot  anywhere  that  rivalled 
in  successful  complexity  the  plot  of  The  Moon- 


122  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

stone.  Suppose  a  good  talker  were  to  attempt 
to  amuse  and  excite  an  audience  by  telling  in 
his  own  fashion  the  outline  of  a  famous  novel — 
think  of  the  contrast  for  such  a  purpose  illus- 
trated by  The  Moonstone  and  The  Mill  on  the 
Floss!  Yet  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that 
the  latter  is  so  much  greater  in  literature  that 
the  two  cannot  even  be  named  together.  Col- 
lins was  amazingly  clever;  each  of  his  stories 
was  an  enigma,  a  delightful  puzzle  offered  to 
the  public.  They  brought  him  a  vast  number 
of  readers  and  no  fame — for  Collins  has  no  real 
fame ;  he  hardly  belongs  to  literature  at  all,  ex- 
cept as  a  striking  example  of  the  school  of  mys- 
tery and  horror.  He  felt  himself  that  he  was 
only  an  entertainer,  and  he  made  an  effort  to 
write  a  ** purpose"  novel,  which  he  accom- 
plished in  Man  and  Wife,  an  attack  upon  college 
athletics  and  the  marriage  laws;  but  the  only 
interest  of  this  book  is  in  its  ingenuity.  Critics 
would  no  more  place  Collins  on  a  level  with 
George  Eliot,  no,  nor  with  Anthony  TroUope, 
than  they  would  rank  on  the  platform  a  sleight- 
of-hand  magician  with  Daniel  Webster. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  123 

The  wonderful  mystery-criminal  tales, 
dressed  out  in  such  gorgeous  style  by  Poe,  were 
developed  prodigiously  by  Collins,  who  in  our 
day  has  been  almost  obliterated  from  view  by 
Conan  Doyle.  It  would  be  difficult  to  exagger- 
ate the  popularity  of  this  author.  Sherlock 
Holmes  is  at  this  moment  one  of  the  best-known 
fictitious  characters  that  has  ever  been  created. 
And  he  is  known  in  all  languages,  he  has  ap- 
peared on  the  stage  in  all  countries.  The  Eus- 
sians  and  the  Japanese  know  their  lean  detect- 
ive as  well  as  the  English.  And  yet,  despite 
this  universal  vogue,  despite  our  pleasure  in 
these  blood-curdling  tales,  despite  our  gratitude 
to  the  author  for  so  many  hours  of  delightful 
bewilderment,  what  would  happen  to  the  critic 
who  should  rank  him  among  the  great  British 
novelists,  or  associate  him  in  letters  with  an- 
other living  Englishman,  Thomas  Hardy  ^ 

Such  a  state  of  things  arouses  reflection.  It 
is  clear  that  there  must  be  something  besides 
cleverness,  even  diabolical  cleverness,  to  win 
anything  like  permanent  fame. 

In  comparison  between  British  and  American 


124  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

novelists — ^whether  one  takes  the  nineteenth  or 
the  twentieth  century — the  patriotic  American 
would  suffer  actual  pain,  were  it  not  that  the 
more  patriotic  a  person  is  the  more  incapable 
he  is  of  seeing  the  truth.  Love  is  blind,  love  of 
country  stone-blind.  But  however  harsh  the 
contrast  in  the  domain  of  the  novel,  there  is  a 
special  province  where  America  has  actually  ex- 
celled England.  This  is  seen  in  the  production 
of  the  Short  Story,  a  species  of  art  quite  differ- 
ent, as  has  been  pointed  out,  from  the  story  that 
is  short.  Silas  Marner  is  a  story  that  is  short, 
but  not  a  Short  Story ;  The  Gold  Bug  is  a  Short 
Story.  Our  first  humourist,  Washington  Irv- 
ing, occasionally  attained  unto  perfection  in  this 
difficult  field.  For  in  Rip  Van  Winkle  and  in 
The  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow  his  narrative  is 
so  good  and  his  technique  so  perfect  that  the 
world  has  agreed  to  regard  these  two  as  imper- 
ishable classics.  Irving 's  pathos  seems  thin 
and  flat  to-day,  and  many  of  his  meditative  mus- 
ings are  staled  by  custom;  but  his  humour, 
quite  English  rather  than  American,  is  genuine, 
and  a  marvellous  preservative. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  125 

A  world-genius  followed  Irving — Edgar  Al- 
lan Poe.  Poe  's  tales  of  mystery,  in  comparison 
with  Cooper  *s  tales  of  adventure,  illustrate  the 
analogy  of  the  lyric  and  the  epic.  This  analogy 
will  not  usually  hold  good;  because  the  lyric 
represents  one  mood  and  is  usually  subjective, 
whereas  Guy  de  Maupassant  ^s  short  stories,  for 
example,  represent  a  variety  of  moods  and  are 
as  near  objectivity  as  it  was  possible  for  their 
gifted  author  to  make  them.  But  Poe  was 
really  a  lyrical  poet  by  nature ;  and  the  best  of 
his  short  stories  are  almost  perfect  examples  of 
prose  lyrics.  This  becomes  instantly  apparent 
in  reading  The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  and 
(my  own  favourite)  Ligeia,  The  sombre  mood 
prevails,  and  rises  to  an  agonising  climax  ex- 
actly as  Tennyson's  meditative  rapture  reaches 
a  climax  of  passion  in  Tears,  Idle  Tears,  The 
perfection  of  Poe's  art,  joined  with  the  thrilling 
suspense  of  his  plots,  made  him  a  world-figure, 
a  fruitful  influence  in  all  countries.  No  foreign 
writer  has  reached  the  level  of  Poe's  best  work 
in  the  analysis  of  the  passion  he  made  his 
specialty — fear. 


126  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

This  level,  however,  is  not  the  highest  level. 
That  was  reached  by  Hawthorne,  whose  moral 
grasp  of  the  realities  of  life  gave  to  his  short 
stories  a  firmer  foundation  and  a  broader  and 
more  lasting  appeal.  For  while  I  have  never 
outgrown  Poe,  I  find  that  many  others  have,  if 
they  are  telling  the  truth  about  it ;  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  any  one  to  outgrow  Hawthorne.  The 
difference  between  Poe  and  Hawthorne  is  the 
difference  between  the  uncanny  and  the  spir- 
itual ;  in  human  emotion,  it  is  the  difference  be- 
tween realism  and  reality.  Poe  makes  our  flesh 
creep  with  sensations;  Hawthorne  penetrates 
into  the  depths  of  our  souls.  Hawthorne  used 
only  the  smallest  fraction  of  his  material;  and 
to  understand  his  method  and  his  aim,  it  is 
necessary  to  read  only  Ethan  Brand. 

Bret  Harte  was  another  master  of  the  short 
story,  and  a  germinal  writer  as  well.  He  found 
more  gold  in  California  than  any  of  the  miners, 
and  he  had  a  private  mint  of  his  own,  by  which 
he  made  it  current  coin,  good  wherever  the  soul 
of  man  is  precious.  His  two  best  tales.  The 
Luck  of  Roaring  Camp  and  The  Outcasts  of 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  127 

Poker  Flat,  are  as  vivid  now  as  then;  their 
drama  and  their  pathos  are  real,  approaching 
the  line  of  melodrama  and  sentimentality  with- 
out once  stepping  over. 

In  North  Carolina  they  have  just  erected  a 
statue  to  **0.  Henry/'  He  was  a  profoundly 
sincere  artist,  as  is  shown,  not  only  in  his  fin- 
ished work,  but  in  his  private  correspondence. 
His  worst  defect  was  a  fear  and  hatred  of  con- 
ventionality ;  he  had  such  mortal  terror  of  stock 
phrases,  that  as  some  one  has  said,  he  wrote  no 
English  at  all — ^he  wrote  the  dot,  dash,  tele- 
graphic style.  Yet  leaving  aside  all  his  per- 
versities and  his  whimsicalities,  and  the  poorer 
part  of  his  work  where  the  desire  to  be  original 
is  more  manifest  than  any  valuable  result  of  it, 
there  remain  a  sufficient  number  of  transcripts 
from  life  and  interpretations  of  it  to  give  him 
abiding  fame.  There  is  a  humorous  tender- 
ness in  The  Whirligig  of  Life,  and  profound 
ethical  passion  in  A  Blackjack  Bargainer.  A 
highly  intelligent  though  unfavourable  criticism 
of  Porter  that  came  to  me  in  a  private  letter — ^I 
wish  it  might  be  printed — condemns  him  for  the 


128  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

vagaries  of  his  plots,  which  remind  my  corre- 
spondent of  the  quite  serious  criticism  he  read 
in  a  Philadelphia  newspaper,  which  spoke  of 
**the  interesting  but  hardly  credible  adventures 
of  Ulysses."  Now  hyperbole  is  a  great  Amer- 
ican failing;  and  Porter  was  so  out  and  out 
American  that  this  disease  of  art  raised 
blotches  on  his  work.  Yet  his  best  emphasis  is 
placed  where  it  belongs. 

No  writer  of  distinction  has,  I  think,  been 
more  closely  identified  with  the  short  story  in 
English  than  0.  Henry.  Irving,  Poe,  Haw- 
thorne, Bret  Harte,  Stevenson,  Kipling  attained 
fame  in  other  fields;  but  although  Porter  had 
his  mind  fully  made  up  to  launch  what  he  hoped 
would  be  the  great  American  novel,  the  veto  of 
death  intervened,  and  the  many  volumes  of  his 
** complete  works*'  are  made  up  of  brevities. 
The  essential  truthfulness  of  his  art  is  what 
gave  his  work  immediate  recognition,  and  ac- 
counts for  his  rise  from  journalism  to  litera- 
ture. There  is  poignancy  in  his  pathos;  deso- 
lation in  his  tragedy;  and  his  extraordinary 
humour  is  full  of  those  sudden  surprises  that 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  129 

give  us  delight.  Uncritical  readers  have  never 
been  so  deeply  impressed  with  0.  Henry  as  have 
the  professional,  jaded  critics,  weary  of  the  old 
trick  a  thousand  times  repeated,  who  found  in 
his  writings  a  freshness  and  originality  amount- 
ing to  genius. 

Among  the  thousands  of  short  stories  written 
by  lesser  Americans  than  the  five  mentioned 
above,  two  by  Richard  Harding  Davis  will  cer- 
tainly be  read  for  many  years  to  come — Galla- 
gher, the  wonderful  boy  who  **beat  the  town," 
and  The  Bar  Sinister,  which  seems  already  to 
have  won  its  way  into  the  select  canine  classics 
of  the  world. 

Russia,  a  country  that  has  taught  the  world 
more  about  realistic  novels  than  any  other,  and 
which  has  supplied  the  world  with  the  best  il- 
lustrations of  the  art,  has  also  been  pre-eminent 
for  the  last  hundred  years  in  the  short  story, 
her  later  writers  achieving  their  highest  fame 
in  this  field.  Pushkin,  the  founder  of  modern 
Russian  literature,  is  the  originator,  as  seen  in 
his  ** other  harmony"  of  prose;  Gogol's  Over- 
coat had  more  influence  on  succeeding  writers 


130  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

than  any  other  work;  Turgenev's  Sportsman's 
Sketches  are  beautiful  specimens  and  exerted  a 
powerful  moral  influence  as  well;  Tolstoi's 
short  stories  are  among  the  best  ever  written, 
inspired  by  the  New  Testament  parables,  which 
are  themselves  incomparable,  the  absolute  de- 
spair of  modem  art;  after  Tolstoi,  the  most 
notable  master  of  the  short  story  in  Eussian  is 
Chekhov,  whose  influence  is  just  beginning  to 
be  felt  in  America ;  and  if  any  one  feels  a  doubt 
as  to  the  excellence  of  the  modem  Eussians, 
one  should  read  Garshin's  Four  Days,  An- 
dreev's  Silence,  Gorki's  Twenty-six  Men  and  a 
Girl,  and  Artsybashev's  Nina^  Every  Eussian 
novelist  of  distinction  has  written  admirable 
short  stories  except  Dostoevski.  As  the  Amer- 
ican defect  is  humorous  exaggeration,  so  the 
Eussian  defect  is  tragic  exaggeration — it  might 
be  a  wholesome  corrective  for  each  nation  to 
study  the  best  art  of  the  other.  Unfortunately, 
though  quite  naturally,  the  only  American  short 
stories  that  are  really  popular  in  Eussia  are 
the  evil  dreams  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 
Although  we  have  no  young  Americans  who 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  131 

can  compare  with  Andreev,  Sologub,  Artsy- 
bashev,  Gorki,  Kuprin,  there  is  one  respect  in 
which  American  short  stories  and  indeed  all 
American  fiction  in  general  show  superiority 
to  the  Eussian ;  and  I  am  fully  aware  that  what 
I  regard  as  our  chief  merit  is  precisely  the  thing 
for  which  we  are  most  stridently  condemned. 
I  mean  our  reserve  in  depicting  the  passion  of 
sex.  We  have  been  scourged  for  this  not  only 
by  foreign  writers,  but  by  many  of  our  **  ad- 
vanced" journalists;  it  is  incidentally  well  to 
remember  that  not  one  of  these  American  men 
and  women  who  ridicule  the  work  of  Mr. 
Howells  and  Mr.  James  has  ever  written  any- 
thing that  approaches  it  in  literary  distinction. 
We  ought  not  to  be  ashamed  of  the  American 
reverence  before  the  mystery  of  passion;  we 
ought  to  regard  it  with  pride.  We  have 
scarcely  any  outrageously  indecent  authors, 
whose  work,  common  enough  in  Europe,  bears 
about  the  same  relation  to  true  art  that  a  boy's 
morbid  sketches  on  fences  bear  to  Michael  An- 
gelo's  frescoes.  Indecency  is  not  necessarily 
sincerity.    Instead   of   omitting  the   motif  of 


132  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

passion  in  art,  instead  of  ignorance,  timidity,  or 
prudishness,  our  American  reticence  really  in- 
dicates a  better  appreciation  of  its  tremendous 
force.  For  as  Henry  James  once  pointed  out, 
the  silence  of  the  American  before  the  mysteries 
of  passion  shows  more  reverence  than  profuse 
and  detailed  exhibitions.  It  shows  more  rever- 
ence, more  understanding,  and  more  dignity. 

Our  American  literature  is  sadly  in  need  of 
improvement,  but  we  shall  not  improve  by  imi- 
tating the  only  thing  in  Continental  literature 
which  takes  no  talent  to  copy.  Changing  the 
trumps  will  not  help  us  nearly  so  much  as  more 
skill  in  playing  the  game. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ROMANTIC   REVIVAL   1894-1904 

The  romantic  revival  from  1894  to  1904 — Zola  and  Steven- 
son— two  predictions  of  approaching  romance — the  remark- 
able year  1894 — Weyman,  Doyle,  Hope,  Churchill,  Stockton 
— Sienkiewicz — passing  away  of  romantic  extravagance — 
survivals  of  the  school,  such  as  McCutcheon  and  Farnol — 
the  "life"  novel  of  to-day — DeMorgan,  Bennett,  Wells, 
White,  Rolland — the  gain  to  the  novel — the  loss. 

When  George  Eliot  died  in  1880,  it  appeared  as 
though  English  fiction  would  not  soon  burst 
the  fetters  of  Realism.    Dickens,  Thackeray,\ 
George  Eliot,  Trollope,  and  Reade,  despite  an  / 
occasional  holiday  in  the  climate  of  romance/ 
were  all  professional  realists;  Thomas  Hardy 
was  attracting  a  steadily  widening  circle  of 
readers;  in  America,  Howells  and  James  were 
busily  a-hunting  specimens  with  the  camera; 
Turgenev  and   Tolstoi   were   stimulating   the 
British  novel  in  French-translation-dilutions; 
and  in  France,  this  very  year  saw  the  publica- 
tion of  Zola's  treatise  on  the  Experimental 
NoveL 

133 


134  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Komance  seemed  anachronistic.  Zola,  flushed 
with  the  new  scientific  spirit,  wholly  confident 
that  he  belonged  to  the  future  and  the  future  to 
him,  announced  that  Walter  Scott  was  a  novel- 
ist exclusively  for  boarding-school  girls!  that 
he  would  never  again  be  read  by  serious  and 
mature  readers. 

Zola  was  merely  announcing  what  seemed  to 
the  majority  of  his  listeners,  irrefragably  true. 
Two  factors,  however,  were  overlooked  in  his 
prophecy, — which  may  be  called  the  negative 
and  the  positive  element.  Eealism  and  roman- 
ticism seem  bound  to  alternate ;  and  the  realists 
were  so  overconfident,  so  sure  of  themselves, 
that  they  plunged  into  excesses  inevitably  cer- 
tain to  lead  to  reform,  or  at  any  rate  to  some- 
thing different.  It  is  a  great  pity  that  Zola 
could  not  have  lived  to  describe  his  own  death ; 
for  the  manner  of  his  death  would  not  only  have 
interested  him,  it  would  have  made  a  splendid 
chapter  in  any  one  of  his  experimental  novels. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  he  died  of  suffoca- 
tion in  his  sleep ;  he  was  found,  in  the  morning, 
lying  half  out  of  bed,  his  face  on  the  floor 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  135 

buried  in  his  own  vomit.  The  death  of  this 
great  leader  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  the 
limits  of  his  art. 

The  other  factor — the  positive  factor — ^is  not 
so  easy  to  predict  as  the  negative ;  but  its  pos- 
sibility is  always  delightful  to  contemplate,  for 
it  makes  the  history  of  art  to  resemble  a  won- 
derful game  of  chance.  When  the  citizens  of 
the  French  Eevolution  thought  they  had  estab- 
lished republican  equality,  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
happened  to  appear  on  the  scene ;  and  when  the 
giant  Eealism  had  got  the  spirit  of  English  fic- 
tion safely  locked  into  the  dungeon,  the  young 
knightly  figure  of  Stevenson  arrived  and  re- 
leased her. 

Stevenson  was  thirty  years  old  when  George 
Eliot  died.  He  looked  about  him  on  a  dreary 
landscape.  At  its  best,  realism  was  made  up 
of  afternoon  teas ;  at  its  worst,  it  was  garbage. 
He  wanted  something  that  should  at  once  be 
more  stimulating  and  more  agreeable.  Not 
being  able  to  discover  it  anywhere,  he  was 
forced  to  produce  it  himself.  **For  Zola,"  said 
he  in  a  letter,  *  ^  I  have  no  toleration,  though  the 


136  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

cnrious,  eminently  bourgeois,  and  eminently 
French  creature  has  power  of  a  kind.  But  I 
would  he  were  deleted.  I  would  not  give  a 
chapter  of  old  Dumas  .  .  .  for  the  whole  boil- 
ing of  the  Zolas.'' 

Stevenson  said  the  following  titles  **  should 
be":  The  Filibuster's  Cache:  Jerry  Ahershaw: 
Blood  Money:  a  Tale,  instead  of  **what  is,'' 
Aunt  Anne's  Tea  Cosy,  Mrs,  Brierly's  Niece, 
Society:  a  Novel,  It  was  about  the  year  1884 
that  he  wrote  this. 

However,  in  1881  he  was  sure  of  his  mission. 
Although  Treasure  Island  was  not  published 
until  1883,  we  find  that  he  had  begun  work  upon 
it  so  early  as  the  25th  August,  1881,  for  on  that 
day  he  wrote  to  Henley : 

I  am  now  on  another  lay  for  the  moment  ...  see 
here,  The  Sea-Cook,  or  Treasure  Island;  a  Story  for 
Boys.  If  this  don't  fetch  the  kids,  why,  they  have 
gone  rotten  since  my  day.  Will  you  be  surprised  to 
learn  that  it  is  about  Buccaneers,  that  it  begins  in  the 
Admiral  Benhow  public-house  on  Devon  coast,  that 
it's  all  about  a  map,  and  a  treasure,  and  a  mutiny, 
and  a  derelict  ship,  and  a  current,  .  .  .  and  a  doctor, 
and  another  doctor,  and  a  sea-cook  with  one  leg,  and 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  137 

a  sea-song  with  the  chorus  **Yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle 
of  rum''  (at  the  third  Ho  you  heave  at  the  capstan 
bars),  which  is  a  real  buccaneer's  song,  only  known 
to  the  crew  of  the  late  Captain  Flint.  .  .  .  That 's  the 
kind  of  man  I  am,  blast  your  eyes.  .  .  .  And  now 
look  here — this  is  next  day — and  three  chapters  are 
written.  ...  It's  quite  silly  and  horrid  fun,  and 
what  I  want  is  the  best  book  about  the  Buccaneers 
that  can  be  had  ...  a  chapter  a  day  I  mean  to  do; 
they  are  short;  and  perhaps  in  a  month  The  Sea- 
Cook  may  to  Routledge  go,  yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle 
of  rum !  ...  No  women  in  the  story,  Lloyd 's  orders ; 
and  who  so  blithe  to  obey?  It's  awful  fun,  boys'  sto- 
ries ;  you  just  indulge  the  pleasure  of  your  heart,  that 's 
all;  no  trouble,  no  strain.  ...  0  sweet,  0  generous, 
0  human  toils !  You  would  like  my  blind  beggar  in 
Chapter  III,  I  believe;  no  writing,  just  drive  along 
as  the  words  come  and  the  pen  will  scratch ! 

Seldom  is  a  preacher  able  to  practise  so  well. 
An  ardent  advocate  of  the  gospel  of  romance, 
Stevenson,  in  less  than  a  dozen  years,  produced 
Treasure  Island,  Prince  Otto,  Kidnapped,  The 
Black  Arrow,  The  Master  of  Ballantrae,  Catri- 
ona  (David  Balfour),  The  Ebb  Tide, 

These  books  worked  a  revolution  in  English 
fiction.  One  man,  appearing  at  just  the  mo- 
ment when  readers  were  either  weary  or  dis- 


138  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

gusted  with  the  reigning  Sovereign,  Eealism, 
toppled  him  over  with  the  sheer  audacity  of 
genius.  Many  who  read  these  lines  can  remem- 
ber the  mad  eagerness  with  which  we  greeted 
those  new  romances.  What  a  relief  to  turn 
from  the  close,  foul  mugginess  of  naturalism  to 
the  invigorating  air  of  the  ocean !  For  Steven- 
son's  immense  service  to  letters  was  really 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  opening  the  windows 
of  heaven,  and  sweeping  the  chambers  of  art 
with  air  and  sunshine.  Before  he  died,  he  had 
converted  the  English  speaking  world,  and  he 
knew  it. 

It  seems  to  me  pedantic  to  prefer  Scott  to 
Stevenson.  The  latter  beat  the  former  at  his 
own  game.  Stevenson's  romances  are  more 
thrillingly  adventurous  than  Scott's;  his  char- 
acters are  equally  interesting;  his  style  is  im- 
measurably superior.  When  I  first  read  The 
Beach  of  Falesd,  I  had  to  stop  and  compose 
myself,  so  loud  was  the  beating  of  my  heart. 
His  men  and  women  will  be  my  intimates  for 
the  rest  of  my  life.  And  the  great  goddess  of 
Romance,  hitherto  rigged  out  in  any  old  clothes, 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  139 

was  adorned  by  Stevenson  with  graceful,  ex- 
quisite, and  shining  garments.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  with  the  one  exception  of  Henry  Es- 
mond, there  has  never  been  in  the  literature  of 
prose  romance  so  happy  a  blending  of  wildly 
exciting  incident  with  such  technically  rhetori- 
cal perfection. 

Of  all  modern  authors,  Stevenson  is  the  best 
for  youth.  Our  boys  and  girls  follow  the  arch- 
magician  from  wonder  to  wonder,  and  they 
learn  the  delight  of  reading,  and  they  absorb 
the  beauty  of  style,  as  one  learns  good  manners 
by  associating  with  well-bred  exemplars.  For 
Henry  James,  describing  a  lady  serving  tea  on 
an  English  lawn,  is  not  more  careful  of  his 
language  than  Stevenson,  describing  one-legged 
Silver  in  the  act  of  murder.  Stevenson  was 
purely  literary;  he  was  not  a  great  dramatist 
nor  a  great  poet,  though  he  wrote  verses  and 
plays ;  but  it  is  abundantly  clear  that  he  was  a 
great  novelist,  essayist,  and  maker  of  epistles. 
In  these  three  departments  he  stands  in  the  first 
rank. 

Two  years  before  his  death  the  signs  of  the 


140  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

coming  revival  of  romance  were  unmistakable, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  remember  that  two  Eng- 
lish critics  went  on  record  at  almost  the  same 
moment.  Mr.  Saintsbury  and  Mr.  Gosse  each 
independently  predicted  the  coming  flood, 
warning  all  novelists  to  get  into  the  ark  of 
safety.  In  an  essay  called  The  Present  State 
of  the  English  Novel  (1892),  part  of  which  had 
been  printed  in  1888,  Professor  Saintsbury  haz- 
arded the  following  definite  but  somewhat  cau- 
tious prophecy: 

In  discussing  the  state  of  the  English  novel  at  a 
time  which  seems  likely  to  be  a  rather  exceptionally 
interesting  one  in  the  history  of  a  great  department 
of  literature  in  England,  it  will  probably  be  as  well 
to  make  the  treatment  as  little  of  a  personal  one  as 
possible  .  .  .  the  question  ...  is  one  of  setting  in 
order,  as  well  as  may  be,  the  chief  characteristics  of 
the  English  novels  of  the  day,  and  of  indicating,  with 
as  little  rashness  as  possible,  which  of  them  are  on 
the  mounting  hand  and  which  are  on  the  sinking. 
And  for  my  part,  and  in  the  first  place,  I  do  not  see 
any  reason  to  think  the  reappearance  of  the  romance 
of  adventure  at  all  likely  to  be  a  mere  passing  phe- 
nomenon. For  the  other  kind  has  gone  hopelessly 
sterile  in  all  countries,  and  is  very  unlikely  to  be  good 
for  anything  unless  it  is  raised  anew  from  seed,  and 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  141 

allowed  a  pretty  long  course  of  time.  .  .  .  All  things 
are  possible  in  a  time  when  a  novelist  of  real  talent 
like  M.  Zola  dismisses  Sir  Walter  Scott  as  a  **  board- 
ing-school novelist/'  and  when  a  critic  of  real  in- 
telligence like  my  friend,  Mr.  Brander  Matthews,  takes 
Mr.  Howells  for  an  excellent  critic.  The  safer  plan 
is  to  stand  still  and  see  the  wonderful  works  of  the 
Lord. 

In  an  essay  called  The  Limits  of  Realism  in 
Fiction  (1893),  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse  remarked: 

In  the  meantime,  wherever  I  look  I  see  the  novel 
ripe  for  another  reaction.  The  old  leaders  will  not 
change.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they  will  write 
otherwise  than  in  the  mode  which  has  grown  mature 
with  them.  But  in  France,  among  the  younger  men, 
every  one  is  escaping  from  the  realistic  formula.  The 
two  young  athletes  for  whom  M.  Zola  predicted  ten 
years  ago  an  "experimental"  career  more  profoundly 
scientific  than  his  own,  are  realists  no  longer.  M. 
Guy  de  Maupassant  has  become  a  psychologist,  and 
M.  Huysmans  a  mystic.  M.  Bourget,  who  set  all  the 
ladies  dancing  after  his  ingenious,  musky  books,  never 
has  been  a  realist ;  nor  has  Pierre  Loti,  in  whom,  with 
a  fascinating  freshness,  the  old  exiled  romanticism 
comes  back  with  a  laugh  and  a  song.  All  points  to  a 
reaction  in  France;  and  in  Russia,  too,  if  what  we 
hear  is  true,  the  next  step  will  be  toward  the  mystical 
and  the  introspective.    In  America  it  would  be  rash 


142  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

for  a  foreigner  to  say  what  signs  of  change  are  evi- 
dent. The  time  has  hardly  come  when  we  look  to 
America  for  the  symptoms  of  literary  initiative.  But 
it  is  my  conviction  that  the  limits  of  realism  have 
been  reached;  that  no  great  writer  who  has  not  al- 
ready adopted  the  experimental  system  will  do  so ;  and 
that  we  ought  now  to  be  on  the  outlook  to  welcome 
(and,  of  course,  to  persecute)  a  school  of  novelists 
with  a  totally  new  aim,  part  of  whose  formula  must 
unquestionably  be  a  concession  to  the  human  instinct 
for  mystery  and  beauty. 

This  scripture  was  fulfilled  in  our  ears. 
The  year  of  Stevenson's  death,  1894,  was  a 
notable  year  in  the  history  of  English  fiction, 
both  for  the  number  and  varied  excellence  of  the 
novels  it  produced;  and  because  it  was  the  be- 
ginning of  a  tidal  wave  of  romanticism.  Old 
faiths  always  flash  brightest  just  before  their 
extinction,  thinks  Thomas  Hardy;  and  in  the 
year  1894,  were  published  Trilby,  Marcella, 
Life's  Little  Ironies,  Esther  Waters,  Lord  Or- 
mont  and  His  Aminta,  Pembroke,  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  any  romantic  reaction;  but 
there  also  appeared  The  Ebb  Tide,  The  Jungle 
Booh,  Perly cross,  The  Tragedy  of  Pudd'nhead 
Wilson,  Under  the  Red  Robe,  My  Lady  Rotha, 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  143 

and  a  story  of  prodigious  influence,  The  Pris- 
oner of  Zenda, 

The  demand  for  some  of  these  books  was  so 
sharp  and  the  rapidity  of  their  circulation  so 
remarkable,  that  the  sales  became  a  matter  of 
interest  to  critics  who  were  watching  the  public 
taste.  It  was  about  this  time  that  the  New 
York  Bookman  began  to  publish  its  monthly 
list  of  ** best  sellers,"  which  not  merely  recorded 
the  lines  of  popularity,  but  gave  a  stimulus  to 
their  extension. 

Komanticism  suddenly  became  so  fashionable 
that  many  young  men  and  women  wrote  their 
first  attempts  in  fiction  in  this  manner;  and 
some  novelists  of  established  reputation,  unwill- 
ing to  be  left  adrift,  trimmed  their  sails  to  the 
fresh  breeze.  The  old  masters.  Hardy,  Mere- 
dith, Howells,  James,  refused  to  surrender ;  but 
Hardy  speedily  stopped  writing  novels;  so  did 
Meredith;  and  in  America  there  was  so  strong 
a  reaction  against  Howells  and  James  that  for 
some  years  their  readers  greatly  diminished  in 
numbers,  and  their  production  in  excellence. 
Mr.  Howells,  though  he  kept  right  on,  wrote 


144  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

nothing  of  high  value  from  1892  to  1902;  Mr. 
James  produced  little  from  1890  to  1896 — and 
in  1898,  perhaps  unconsciously  under  the  influ- 
ence of  romance,  he  wrote  one  of  the  best  ghost 
stories  in  the  world.  The  Turn  of  the  Screw, 
which  is  the  wildest  romanticism  in  a  realistic 
setting.  Mr.  Howells  protested  in  vain  against 
this  sudden  domination  of  romance,  calling  the 
whole  thing  ** romantic  rot";  but  while  defiantly- 
sceptical,  he  was  nevertheless  temporarily  en- 
gulfed. 

The  strength  of  the  Romantic  Revival  is 
shown  most  clearly  in  the  fact  that  it  drew  men 
whose  natural  tastes,  inclinations,  and  tempera- 
ments were  realistic,  and  forced  them  to  pro- 
duce romances.  Stanley  Weyman,  whose  mod- 
est preface  to  the  new  edition  of  his  works  is 
confessionally  charming,  admits  that  he  has 
tried  merely  to  give  entertainment  to  the  pub- 
lic; and  that  if  he  has  brightened  lonely  hours, 
he  is  satisfied.  Now  Mr.  Weyman,  by  nature, 
is  a  realist,  and  he  began  his  career  with  a  novel 
that  might  have  been  written  by  Anthony  Trol- 
lope.    It  is  called  The  New  Rector,  and  it  is  an 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  145 

excellent  bit  of  pure  realism.  It  made  not  the 
slightest  impression;  suddenly  shifting,  he  pro- 
duced in  rapid  succession,  The  House  of  the 
Wolf,  A  Gentleman  of  France,  Under  the  Red 
Rohe,  and  found  himself  one  of  the  most  famous 
men  in  the  world.  For  about  fifteen  years  he 
kept  up  a  copious  contribution,  and  when  the 
romantic  wave  subsided,  he  retired. 

My  own  experience  on  a  certain  Sunday  even- 
ing in  1894  illustrates  in  microcosmic  manner 
the  world's  change  of  heart  from  realism  to 
romanticism.  I  had  just  finished  reading  Mar- 
cella,  and  I  felt  as  if  my  mouth  were  full  of 
ashes.  Then  I  picked  up  Under  the  Red  Rohe, 
and  I  read  it  from  first  page  to  last  not  only 
without  rising  from  my  chair,  but  without  a 
wiggle  in  it.  Such  a  glorious  relief  from  tire- 
some party  politics  and  pharisaical  reformers 
in  London,  to 

''Marked  Cards!" 

the  lie  hotly  given  and  returned,  the  tables  and 
chairs  overset,  the  rush  for  the  dark  street,  the 
clash  of  swords,  the  parry  and  thrust — ^we're 
off! 


146  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

The  physician,  Conan  Doyle,  with  his  finger 
on  the  public  pulse,  had  already  got  started  in 
the  late  eighties  with  Micah  Clarke  and  The 
White  Company;  but  these  books  were  not 
nearly  so  much  read  in  the  eighties  as  in  the 
nineties,  when  they  were  more  in  the  fashion. 
Anthony  Hope,  who  had  been  graduated  from 
Balliol  with  scholarly  honours  of  the  first  class, 
and  whose  real  tastes  and  talents  in  literature 
are  seen  in  the  Dolly  Dialogues  and  Quisante, 
produced  the  romantic  extravaganza,  The  Pris- 
oner of  Zenda,  with  his  tongue  in  his  cheek. 
This  should  have  been  turned  into  a  comic 
opera,  but  so  hot  was  the  public  for  romantic 
excitement,  that  together  with  Under  the  Red 
Robe,  it  had  an  enormous  run  on  the  boards  as 
sheer  melodrama.  I  am  glad  that  Mr.  Hawkins 
wrote  The  Prisoner  of  Zenda,  because  it  gave 
to  so  many  people  a  pleasurable  and  innocent 
excitement ;  but  I  do  not  believe  he  would  have 
written  it  either  fifteen  years  before  or  fifteen 
years  after.  ...  It  was  a  great  mistake  to  kill 
the  gentleman  in  Rupert  of  Hentzau;  books 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  147 

that  are  written  for  entertainment  should  not 
suddenly  become  black. 

The  romantic  germ  crossed  the  ocean,  and 
America  was  infected.  Historical  romances 
became  amazingly  popular ;  so  long  as  they  were 
''costume  novels,"  whose  characters  talked  a 
jargon  of  obsolete  oaths,  and  had  a  sentimental 
love  story,  with  a  historical  royal  personage 
as  deus  ex  machina,  it  mattered  not  if  their  his- 
torical foundation  betrayed  ignorance,  nor  if 
their  style  were  crude.  Scores  of  such  books 
might  be  mentioned,  which  sold  like  wildfire 
until  the  next  sensation  came  along;  but  a 
peculiarly  excellent  example  of  the  whole  class 
appeared  in  When  Knighthood  Was  in  Flower, 
by  the  late  Charles  Major.  This  work  was 
painfully  lacking  in  distinction,  yet  over  five 
hundred  thousand  copies  were  sold.  If  Steven- 
son spoke  contemptuously  of  his  own  poorest 
bit  of  tushery,  The  Black  Arrow,  what  would  he 
have  said  to  this?  It  is  fortunate  that  a 
teacher  cannot  always  be  judged  by  the  work  of 
his  disciples. 


148  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  now  one  of  the  most 
popular  realistic  novelists  in  America,  who 
seems  more  interested  in  political,  religious  and 
social  reform  than  in  the  art  of  the  novel,  and 
whose  books  sell  by  the  hundred  thousand,  hap- 
pened to  begin  his  career  in  the  flood-tide  of 
the  romantic  revival;  and  being  an  infallible 
interpreter  of  public  taste,  naturally  wrote  an 
exciting  historical  romance,  Richard  Carvel, 
with  a  frontispiece  of  a  duel  in  appropriate  cos- 
tume; this  story,  reminiscent  in  places  of  The 
Virginians,  enjoyed  a  tremendous  vogue.  Now 
if  one  wishes  to  know  how  the  temper  of  the 
reading  public  has  changed  from  1899  to 
1915,  one  has  merely  to  compare  Richard 
Carvel  with  The  Inside  of  the  Cup  or  A  Far 
Country, 

The  late  Paul  Leicester  Ford,  realist  by  in- 
stinct and  training,  whose  Honorable  Peter 
Stirling  has  not  yet  been  forgotten  (although 
the  hero  has  been  identified  both  with  Grover 
Cleveland  and  David  B.  Hill),  wrote  a  stirring 
historical  romance,  Janice  Meredith,  which  con- 
quered the  public  immediately,  and  like  so  many 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  149 

of  its  kind  was  speedily  transferred  to  the  stage 
and  thence  to  oblivion. 

Miss  Mary  Johnston's  To  Have  and  to  Hold, 
coming  at  the  end  of  the  century,  when  the  ro- 
mantic movement  reached  its  climax,  had,  but 
did  not  hold,  a  tremendous  popularity.  Being 
absolutely  up  to  date,  it  rather  quickly  passed 
out  of  style.  Booth  Tarkington,  a  writer  of 
great  skill  and  talent,  who  had  made  a  contem- 
porary study  of  manners  in  The  Gentleman 
from  Indiana,  contributed  a  charming  jeu 
d' esprit  to  the  romantic  school  in  Monsieur 
Beaucaire;  compared  with  Dumas 's  Three 
Guardsmen,  this  is  a  humming-bird  to  an  eagle ; 
yet  its  brightness  has  not  faded  with  the  passing 
summer  of  romance.  This  comparison,  by  the 
way,  reminds  me  that  just  at  the  height  of  this 
fashion  a  new  version  of  Dumas 's  immortal 
story  was  put  on  the  American  stage  by  Mr. 
Sothern,  and  flourished  mightily. 

Perhaps  the  centripetal  force  of  the  romantic 
movement  is  shown  most  clearly  in  America  by 
the  sudden  catching  up  of  our  late  beloved 
Frank  Stockton.    Humour  acts  on  romance  like 


150  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

prussic  acid;  and  Frank  Stockton  was  a  pro- 
fessional humourist,  whose  most  characteristic 
work — may  it  never  die ! — is  The  Casting  Away 
of  Mrs.  Lechs  and  Mrs,  Aleshine,  Mr.  Stock- 
ton had  puzzled  the  world  by  his  strange  tale 
of  The  Lady  or  the  Tiger;  but  he  puzzled  the 
critics  much  more  when  he  wrote  The  Adven- 
tures of  Captain  Horn,  a  slam-bang  yarn  of 
blood  and  gold.  Many  of  the  critics  thought 
he  meant  it  as  a  burlesque.  Mr.  Howells, 
alarmed  by  this  apparent  defection  of  a  notable 
novelist,  insisted  that  the  whole  thing  was  a 
joke.  But  it  was  quite  the  contrary;  it  was  a 
case  of  a  trained  literary  expert  following  the 
market,  seeming  to  say,  **If  you  really  want 
tales  of  adventure,  why  not  have  good  onesT' 
And  Captain  Horn,  which  I  have  read  four 
times,  is  one  of  the  most  ingenious  and  most 
thrilling  of  its  kind.  It  had  an  enormous  suc- 
cess, and  unfortunately  led  its  author  into  the 
composition  of  a  sequel,  which  resembled  most 
sequels.  This  Captain  Horn  is  not  only  unlike 
Mr.  Stockton's  previous  work,  it  represents  a 
mental  attitude  flatly  contrary. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  151 

The  Romantic  Revival  lasted  about  fifteen 
years  after  Stevenson's  death;  and  then,  like 
most  revivals,  men  returned  to  life,  as  after 
the  rocket,  we  see  the  stars.  There  are  certain 
American  novelists,  who,  having  started  under 
the  influence  of  The  Prisoner  of  Zenda,  do  not 
quite  see  that  this  particular  cock  won't  fight 
any  more ;  such  is  the  genial  author  of  Beverly 
of  GraustarJc;  one  of  his  novels  had  the  follow- 
ing aperitif  in  the  publisher's  statement:  ''This 
book  goes  with  a  rush,  and  ends  with  a  smash," 
— thus  resembling  neither  life  nor  art.  He  is 
far  better  in  sheer  humorous  extravaganza, 
like  Brewster's  Millions.  A  glaring  English 
anachronism  appears  in  the  work  of  Jeffery 
Farnol. 

More  than  thirty  years  have  elapsed  since 
the  appearance  of  Treasure  Island;  yet,  apart 
from  the  work  of  its  author,  I  can  think  of  not 
one  historical  romance  among  the  hundreds 
that  pullulated  that  seems  likely  to  survive,  ex- 
cept the  splendid  leviathans  of  Sienkiewicz. 
While  Stevenson  was  writing  his  stories,  the 
same  mysterious  spirit  of  romance  hovered  over 


152  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Poland,  and  in  the  eighties  Henryk  Sienkiewicz 
produced  his  great  trilogy  With  Fire  and  Sword, 
The  Deluge,  and  Pan  Michael,  These,  trans- 
lated by  an  admirable  literary  artist,  the  late 
Mr.  Curtin,  appeared  in  America  in  the  early 
nineties,  just  at  the  psychological  moment. 
Then  in  the  year  1896  there  was  published  the 
romance  of  Eome,  Quo  Vadis,  the  American 
translation  coming  from  the  press  in  Boston 
three  months  before  the  original  in  Warsaw. 
That  particular  year  was  a  first-rate  year  for 
this  kind  of  thing,  and  the  world  of  historical 
romances  had  a  bumper  crop.  This  Quo  Vadis, 
though  decidedly  inferior  to  the  Polish  trilogy, 
drew  such  wide  and  violent  acclaim  that  it  might 
just  as  well  have  been  unanimous;  and  The 
Last  Days  of  Poynpeii  has  never  seemed  the 
same  since.  After  this,  Sienwiekicz  's  romances 
regularly  appeared  in  English  before  Polish,  in 
response  to  the. keen  demand.  But  is  it  a  sign 
of  the  times  ?  In  1900,  at  the  climax  of  the  ro- 
mantic revival.  The  Knights  of  the  Cross  had  a 
big  sale,  and  it  is  indeed  a  noble  work;  but  in 
1906,  when  the  movement  was  waning,  On  the 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  153 

Field  of  Glory  attracted  little  attention,  and  his 
subsequent  works  almost  none  at  all ;  how  many- 
readers  know  of  Whirlpools  (1910)  and  In 
Desert  and  Wilderness  (1912)?  Yet  these  are 
assuredly  worth  reading. 

Apart  from  the  works  of  Stevenson  and  Sien- 
kiewicz  the  romantic  flood  left  no  definite  thing 
of  value  when  it  receded;  hut  just  as  you  can 
tell  where  a  vanished  stream  has  been  by  the 
bright  freshness  of  the  grass,  so  the  influence 
of  the  romantic  revival,  in  spite  of  its  extremes 
of  fashion,  was  healthful  and  refreshing.  The 
novel  went  from  realism  to  naturalism  to  ex- 
perimentalism,  and  that  way  madness  lies ;  then 
came  a  change  in  the  weather,  and  the  sultriness 
departed. 

The  old  realism  has  not  returned;  but  since 
the  year  1906  a  fine  new  spirit  has  entered  into 
contemporary  fiction,  the  spirit  of  Eeality. 
The  last  ten  years  have  been  marked  by  a  con- 
siderable number  of  long  biographical  novels, 
which  I  call  for  want  of  a  better  name,  the 
'4ife''  novel.  Without  the  trappings  and  con- 
ventions of  *' realism,''  we  find  in  this  life  school 


154  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

work  that  is  thoroughly  sincere.  The  basal  in- 
terest in  human  nature  is  so  great  that  even  its 
weaknesses  and  trivialities  have  been  always 
thought  worthy  of  the  serious  attention  of  ar- 
tists of  dignity;  and  when  faithfully  reported, 
with  sympathy,  as  by  Thackeray,  or  with  scorn, 
as  by  Flaubert, — ^immediately  arouse  in  intelli- 
gent readers  that  delight  of  recognition  which 
must  ever  be  the  target  of  the  painter  of  por- 
traits, whatever  his  implements  may  be.  As 
Mr.  Howells  says,  **Ah,  poor  Eeal  Life,  which 
I  love,  can  I  make  others  see  the  delight  I  find 
in  thy  foolish  and  insipid  face!"  He  can;  he 
has. 

The  new  life  school  assume  that  every  detail 
in  their  huge  books  will  be  interesting,  so  long 
as  it  can  be  verified  by  the  experience  of  the 
reader.  This  is  the  secret  of  the  wonderful 
charm  of  William  De  Morgan,  who  perhaps 
more  than  any  other  novelist,  is  responsible  for 
the  vogue  of  the  lengthy  biographical  fictions  of 
to-day.  He  had  lived  over  sixty  years  without 
writing  a  page  of  creative  work ;  he  had  scarcely 
read  any  novels  except  those  of  Dickens ;  was  in 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  155 

no  sense  of  the  word  a  literary  man.  If  he  had 
not  had  an  attack  of  influenza,  he  might  not 
have  thought  of  writing;  it  was  in  the  idleness 
of  convalescence  that  he  began,  and  was  domes- 
tically persuaded  to  finish  Joseph  Vance,  Even 
then  he  came  near  cancelling  the  first  chapter; 
it  seemed  too  much  like  Dickens.  His  novel 
contained  280,000  words,  and  as  Mr.  De  Morgan 
writes  an  enormous  hand,  the  bulk  of  his  manu- 
script was  appalling.  He  sent  it  to  a  publisher, 
and  immediately  received  it  back,  by  freight,  I 
suppose.  Thinking  it  might  possibly  be  ex- 
amined if  in  smaller  proportions,  he  had  it 
*' typed."  One  morning,  as  the  chief  entered 
the  room,  he  found  the  girl  who  was  typing 
Joseph  Vance  shaken  with  sobs ;  the  story  was 
too  much  for  her  feelings.  This  made  sufficient 
data  for  Mr.  William  Heinemann,  the  most  en- 
terprising publisher  in  London ;  in  the  summer 
of  1906  appeared  Joseph  Vance,  which  pur- 
ported to  be  *'an  ill-written  autobiography, ' ' 
and  it  took  England  and  America  by  storm.  It 
narrates  in  the  first  person  the  biography  of 
Joseph  Vance  from  babyhood  to  old  age;  its 


156  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

descriptions  are  a  mirror,  its  conversations  an 
echo,  of  reality. 

One  of  the  most  popular  of  British  novelists 
at  this  moment  is  Arnold  Bennett.  The  manner 
in  which  he  won  popularity  is  even  more  flat- 
tering to  the  public  than  to  him.  He  had  taken 
a  rather  cavalier  air  as  a  journalist,  and  could 
**see  no  harm''  in  writing  stuff  that  he  knew 
was  trash,  so  long  as  one  earned  a  living  by  it. 
He  had  the  serious  soul  of  the  artist,  and  the 
mocking  ironical  spirit  of  the  self-conscious 
literary  trickster;  some  books,  he  frankly  con- 
fessed, he  wrcfte  as  pot-boilers,  while  in  others 
he  enjoyed  the  luxury  of  writing  to  please  him- 
self, that  is,  to  please  his  conscience.  Well, 
what  happened?  He  had  published  Anna  of 
the  Five  Towns,  The  Grand  Babylon  Hotel,  The 
Gates  of  Wrath,  Leonora,  A  Great  Man,  Sacred 
and  Profane  Love,  Whom  God  Hath  Joined, — 
all  superficially  clever  works  of  no  value,  writ- 
ten to  make  money.  But  they  did  not  make 
money.  They  did  not  make  anything.  No  one 
in  America  apparently  had  ever  heard  of  him 
until  he  published  (just  to  please  himself)  the 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  157 

sincere  and  tragic  history  of  the  lives  of  two 
sisters,  The  Old  Wives'  Tale  (1908).  The  sin- 
cerity and  fidelity  of  its  art  were  instantly  rec- 
ognised; and  Mr.  Bennett  found  himself  a 
famous  man,  with  an  immense  public  eager  to 
read  anything  from  his  pen.  What  happened? 
This  solid  work  not  only  gave  him  reputation 
and  money,  it  supported  all  his  previous  liter- 
ary frivolities.  What  does  it  mean  in  his  bibli- 
ography when  we  see  after  all  those  light  ham- 
mock-and-steamer  books  that  I  have  mentioned, 
the  legend  *^New  Edition,"  with  a  date  invari- 
ably subsequent  to  1908?  What  does  it  mean 
when  we  find  that  some  of  them  were  not  pub- 
lished at  all  in  America  until  after  1908? 

Not  only  was  his  most  serious  essay  in  art 
the  book  that  brought  the  harvest  he  had  in  vain 
tried  to  reap,  his  subsequent  works  in  lighter 
vein  were  done  with  far  greater  skill.  There  is 
simply  no  comparison  in  charm  and  cleverness 
between  The  Grand  Babylon  Hotel  (1902:  new 
edition,  1914:  first  printed  in  America,  1913), 
and  The  Card  (1911),  published  the  same  year 
in  America  under  the  title  Denry  the  Audacious. 


158  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Under  any  title  it  is  one  of  the  most  delightful 
flashes  of  humour  in  our  time;  but  what  a  de- 
testable habit  English  writers  have  of  changing 
the  name  of  a  book  when  it  appears  in  the 
United  States! 

Like  most  successful  English  novelists  of  the 
twentieth  century,  Mr.  Bennett  is  a  successful 
playwright.  His  dramaturgic  adventures  must 
have  interfered  with  the  completion  of  the 
trilogy  begun  in  1910  with  Clayhanger,  and 
continued  in  1911  with  Hilda  Lessways,  as  may 
be  seen  by  remembering  that  Milestones  ap- 
peared in  1912.  Thousands  of  serious  readers 
awaited  with  considerable  eagerness  the  third 
book  in  this  chronicle  of  commonplace  and  self- 
ish lives,  made  to  appear  even  more  common- 
place than  any  individual  life  really  is.  (This 
effect  is  attained  simply  by  forgetting  the  spir- 
itual values  present  in  every  person  in  the 
world. )  The  above-said  serious  readers  waited 
until  1915,  and  I  fear  they  are  not  certain 
that  These  Twain  was  worth  the  wait.  It  is 
marked  by  genuine  artistic  sincerity,  its  best 
quality;  but  perhaps  success  and  vivid  popular- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  159 

ity  have  dulled  the  edge  of  Mr.  Bennett's  pen,  as 
they  certainly  have  for  the  moment  clipped  his 
wings.  This  latest  history  of  people  who  eat 
and  drink  and  sleep  lacks  the  splendid  zeal  burn- 
ing all  through  The  Old  Wives'  Tale.  It  is  a 
verification  of  Henry  James's  comment  that  in 
the  work  of  Arnold  Bennett  we  admire  the  pa- 
tient and  steady  industry  of  the  man,  laying 
brick  on  brick,  but  it  is  impossible  to  guess  for 
what  object  the  structure  is  raised. 

Has  Mr.  Bennett  in  this  latest  work  really 
done  his  absolute  best?  His  best  is  good,  very 
good  indeed ;  but  he  is  not  a  bit  too  good  for  his 
public. 

Mr.  Wells,  who  is  one  of  those  infrequently 
bom  persons — a  professional  reformer  and  a 
professional  humourist — has  made  one  impor- 
tant contribution  to  the  life  novel,  in  Tono- 
Bungay,  (1909),  which  may  eventually  rank  as 
his  most  important  work. 

In  America,  one  of  the  best  examples  of  this 
school  is  seen  in  A  Certain  Rich  Man,  by 
William  Allen  White,  of  Kansas.  The  style  of 
this  story  is  somewhat  careless ;  but  it  is  a  thor- 


160  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

oughly  sound  book,  pregnant  with  reality;  one 
of  the  finest  American  novels  of  the  twentieth 
century.  It  has  little  grace,  and  no  lightness  of 
touch ;  but  it  is  a  faithful  picture  of  the  life  of 
an  American,  and  is  redeemed  from  clumsiness 
by  the  strength  of  sincerity. 

Just  as  Naturalism  was  supplanted  by  Eo- 
manticism,  so  the  absurd  excesses  of  Eomanti- 
cism  were  suicidal.  It  seems  astonishing  to  re- 
member that  in  1894-1899  the  typical  novels 
were  The  Prisoner  of  Zenda,  When  Knighthood 
Was  in  Flower,  and  Richard  Carvel,  and  that 
from  1906-1909  the  public  were  devouring 
Joseph  Vance,  The  Old  Wives'  Tale,  Tono- 
Bungay,  and  A  Certain  Rich  Man, 

The  new  movement  bore  fruit,  not  to  say  a 
whole  orchard,  in  one  novel  in  France,  Jean 
Christophe,  by  Eomain  EoUand.  This  is  the 
detailed  biography  of  one  man,  beginning  with 
his  birth-cry,  and  ending  with  the  death-rattle. 
It  was  published  in  ten  volumes,  and  has  de- 
servedly attracted  more  serious  attention  than 
any  other  French  novel  of  this  century.  It  has 
been  translated  into  most  European  languages, 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  161 

and  might  well  have  been  called  The  Life  and 
Times  of  Jean  Christophe;  for  it  is  a  wonderful 
picture  of  the  intellectual  life  in  Europe  before, 
the  Great  War,  and  ought  to  be  of  permanent 
value.  Its  author  has  the  French  clearness  of 
vision,  with  a  New  England  conscience. 

The  one  great  defect  in  the  life  novel,  seen  of 
course  most  clearly  in  the  immense  number  of 
feeble  imitations  of  the  books  I  have  mentioned, 
is  the  temptation  to  formlessness.  Many  of 
them  have  no  plot,  and  no  sense  of  construction ; 
they  begin  with  birth,  and  might  go  on  in- 
definitely; the  author  adding  incidents  until  he 
has  had  enough,  and  then  deciding  to  quit. 
He  is  either  too  lazy  or  too  incompetent  to 
provide  an  artistic  structure*.  It  is  all  well 
enough  to  write  a  biographical  novel,  but  it 
ought  to  be  a  novel,  not  a  biography  nor  a  diary. 
The  great  horde  of  novel-writers  follow  the 
market  so  sharply  that  I  am  already  becoming 
somewhat  weary  of  stories,  where,  if  you  open 
the  first  chapter,  you  are  in  the  nursery;  the 
middle  chapter,  you  are  just  leaving  college; 
the  last  chapter,  you  hear  bells — sometimes  wed- 


162  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

ding,  sometimes  funeral.  This  kind  of  thing 
is  getting  to  be  altogether  too  common ;  I  could 
name  many,  but  I  remember  three  rather  pop- 
ular novels,  which  appeared  almost  at  the  same 
moment  in  1915,  that  illustrate,  along  with  some 
excellent  qualities,  the  chief  defects  and  the 
wearisome  repetition  of  this  rather  shiftless 
method. 


CHAPTEE  VII 

MEREDITH  AND   HARDY 

George  Meredith — ^his  long  career — his  German  education 
— false  starts — spirit  and  body — his  hatred  of  asceticism — 
his  original  force — his  bad  style — ^bom  in  the  wrong  age 
— ^naturally  adapted  to  poetic  drama — ^his  combination  of 
paganism  and  optimism — ^his  belief  in  the  individual — ^the 
vagueness  of  his  teaching — ^his  hatred  of  discipline — his 
chivalry — Bhoda  Fleming — ^normality  of  Meredith's  char- 
acters— Clara  Middleton — Meredith's  impatient  dislike  of 
Tennyson — ^his  criticism  of  himself  in  Beauchamp's  Career 
— a  fantastic  genius — fluctuations  of  his  reputation — his 
superb  tribute  to  America — a  footnote  on  Thomas  Hardy. 

A  GIGANTIC  and  unique  figure  in  modern  fiction 
demands  separate  and  serious  attention. 
George  Meredith  died  on  the  eighteenth  of  May, 
1909,  and  **the  air  seems  bright  with  his  past 
presence  yef  Although  in  his  ideas  and  men- 
tal attitudes  he  was  emphatically  a  man  of  the 
twentieth  century,  it  is  interesting  and  pleas- 
ant to  remember  that  he  published  fiction  be- 
fore the  earliest  work  of  George  Eliot  appeared. 
None  of  his  books  ever  had  a  large  sale;  but 

163 


164  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

during  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  his  life  his 
name  commanded  immense  respect,  his  home 
was  a  Mecca  for  literary  men,  and  his  death 
seemed  like  the  falling  of  a  pillar  of  literature. 
No  modem  writer  has  come  before  the  public 
with  higher  ^'recommendations'*;  the  much- 
abused  word  '* master''  is  here  fitly  applied;  and 
the  verse  tribute  of  Thomas  Hardy  and  the 
prose  poem  of  J.  M.  Barrie  were  beautiful 
flowers  on  his  grave. 

His  birthday  was  the  day  of  Darwin  and  Lin- 
coln; his  birth-year  the  year  of  Tolstoi  and 
Ibsen ;  and  even  if  his  work  cannot  rank  in  im- 
portance with  the  work  of  these  four,  his  per- 
sonality shines  with  real  splendour. 

Although  Meredith  was  born  in  Hampshire, 
England,  and  spent  most  of  his  life  in  the  south- 
ern part  of  the  island,  his  education  and  his 
temperament  were  decidedly  un-English.  He 
went  neither  to  Oxford  nor  to  Cambridge,  but 
to  Germany;  did  he  unconsciously  acquire  there 
his  cumbersome,  involved  and  unmanageable 
style?  For  the  only  English  author  with  whom 
his  prose  style  has  anything  in  common  is 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  165 

Thomas  Carlyle,  who  was  also  inspired  by  Ger- 
many ;  and  we  know  that  Meredith  had  a  tower- 
ing admiration  for  Carlyle.  Of  course  he  did 
not  really  write  like  him;  he  wrote  like  no  one. 
But  the  manner  of  his  thinking,  however  un- 
palatable this  may  be  just  now,  was  German. 
He  was  more  interested  in  the  metaphysics  of 
passion  than  in  passion;  and  his  novels  are  fully 
as  much  the  product  of  speculative  thought  as 
of  accurate  observation.  He  spun  all  his  books 
out  of  himself,  as  a  spider  spins  his  delicate  and 
intricate  web;  this  too  is  quite  German;  it  is 
exactly  the  way  Kant  built  the  fabric  of  the 
Kritik  of  Pure  Reason, 

Whatever  may  be  Meredith's  place  in  the 
history  of  the  novel,  none  can  deny  to  him  the 
title  of  original  and  powerful  thinker. 

Meredith's  first  essays  at  the  profession  of 
law  and  the  business  of  marriage  were  alike  un- 
happy and  unsuccessful;  he  was  by  nature  an 
absolutely  free  spirit.  .  .  .  His  soul's  dark  cot- 
tage let  in  new  light  as  he  approached  the 
grave;  no  one  who  saw  him  in  his  later  years 
went  away  unimpressed.    His  noble  and  beauti- 


166  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

ful  head,  adorned  with  hair  and  beard  of  snow, 
made  a  presence  of  inexpressible  dignity. 

His  chief  recreation,  apart  from  the  foolish 
one  of  throwing  and  catching  again  a  heavy 
hammer,  which  probably  weakened  his  spine, 
was  reading  French  literature.  It  is  rather 
strange  that  he  learned  nothing  from  French 
style — the  clear,  precise,  short  sentences  in  that 
language  ought  to  have  affected  him,  and  did 
not.  But  his  attitude  toward  the  French  was 
wonderfully  sympathetic;  wonderfully  so,  be- 
cause until  the  days  of  the  Entente  most  Eng- 
lishmen have  signally  failed  to  understand  the 
French  point  of  view.  Look  at  the  narrowness 
of  Tennyson!  But  there  was  nothing  insular 
about  Meredith. 

Like  so  many  novelists,  Meredith  began  his 
career  as  a  poet,  his  first  volume  of  poems  ap- 
pearing in  1851.  He  would  rather  have  spent 
his  life  writing  poetry  than  prose;  but  he  had 
no  money.  Fiction  was  his  kitchen  wench,  he 
always  used  to  say ;  poetry  was  his  Muse.  His 
poems  have  received  hysterical  and  rhapsodical 
praise,  but  he  is  not  really  among  the  English 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  167 

poets,  and  even  if  he  were,  it  is  none  of  our 
business  here. 

As  Browning  has  observed,  the  bird  wings 
and  sings  at  the  same  time ;  spirit  and  body  help 
each  other ;  and  just  as  a  life  of  sensuality  will 
surely  deaden  the  spirit,  so  a  life  of  asceticism 
in  many  cases  has  an  effect  somewhat  similar. 
Meredith's  genius  was  profoundly  spiritual,  but 
he  believed  the  spirit  expressed  itself  through 
the  body.  In  a  letter  written  in  1888,  he  said, 
'*I  have  written  always  with  the  perception  that 
there  is  no  life  but  of  the  spirit;  that 
the  concrete  is  really  the  shadowy ;  yet  that  the 
way  to  spiritual  life  lies  in  the  complete  unfold- 
ing of  the  creature,  not  in  the  nipping  of  his 
passions.  An  outrage  to  Nature  helps  to  ex- 
tinguish his  light.  To  the  flourishing  of  the 
spirit,  then,  through  the  healthy  exercise  of  the 
senses." 

The  intense  and  acrimonious  difference  of 
opinion  about  the  value  of  Meredith's  novels  is 
an  indication  of  the  force  of  his  personality,  and 
of  his  unconventionality  of  expression.  Brown- 
ing, Wagner,  Ibsen,  aroused  a  tempest  which 


168  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

has  left  a  clear  sky  of  fame;  clouds  and  dark- 
ness are  still  around  Walt  Whitman.  Meredith 
and  Whitman  are  authors  that  it  is  best  to  treat 
pragmatically,  if  we  wish  their  work  to  bear 
fruit  in  our  souls ;  if  you  think  they  are  respec- 
tively the  greatest  novelist  and  the  greatest 
poet  of  modem  times,  why,  then  they  are,  to 
you. 

To  me  George  Meredith  is  neither  God  nor 
Devil.  He  is  not  my  Teacher,  as  Browning  is ; 
not  my  Artist,  as  Hardy  is ;  not  my  Eefuge,  as 
Stevenson  is.  But  he  was  a  genial  giant,  and 
I  have  for  his  manhood  and  his  genius  profound 
reverence.  I  know  of  no  better  illustration  of 
the  phrase  Arnold  applied  to  Emerson.  George 
Meredith  was  not  a  great  novelist;  he  was  a 
great  man  who  wrote  novels.  He  was  one  of  the 
greatest  men  of  our  time. 

No  criticism  of  him  has  pleased  me  more  than 
that  by  the  late  Henry  James.  *'The  lyrical 
element  is  not  great,  is  in  fact  not  present  at  all 
in  Balzac,  in  Scott  .  .  .  nor  in  Thackeray,  nor 
in  Dickens — which  is  precisely  why  they  are 
so  essentially  novelists,  so  almost  exclusively 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  169 

lovers  of  the  image  of  life.  ...  It  is  considera- 
ble in  that  bright  particular  genius  of  our  own 
day,  George  Meredith,  who  so  strikes  us  as 
hitching  winged  horses  to  the  chariot  of  his 
prose — steeds  who  prance  and  dance  and  cara- 
cole, who  strain  the  traces,  attempt  to  quit  the 
ground,  and  yearn  for  the  upper  air." 

Meredith  wrote  with  the  utmost  difficulty ;  he 
toiled,  slaved,  sweated  over  his  manuscript ;  his 
style  is  not  in  the  least  spontaneous,  but  rather 
the  result  of  elaborate  ingenuity,  with  more 
than  a  dash  of  downright  perversity.  It  is 
contagious,  too,  as  is  shown  in  some  of  the  esti- 
mates written  of  him  by  his  admirers.  His 
style  is  not  only  bad  for  a  novel,  it  is  bad  any- 
way, it  contains  passages  that  perplex  and  tor- 
ture, rather  than  interest  or  inspire.  Take  this 
sentence  from  Lord  Ormont  and  His  Aminta: 

Was  she  not  colour  the  sight  of  men? 

Meredith  was  a  Master-Mind,  but  not  a  Master 
of  English  Prose ;  a  master  is  like  a  fine  man  on 
a  fine  horse,  you  admire  both  the  controller  and 
the  controlled. 


170  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Meredith's  true  vein  might  have  been  poetic 
drama.  He  was  born  at  the  wrong  time.  If 
he  had  only  been  an  Elizabethan,  or  had  be- 
longed to  the  latter  half  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury! He  had  great  dramatic  qualities,  won- 
derful idyllic  powers,  was  full  of  blood,  and  al- 
ways a  poet  at  heart.  His  splendid  intellectual 
endowments  would  have  made  him  a  worthy 
contemporary  of  Marlowe  and  Chapman,  and  in 
that  open-air  age  he  would  probably  have  writ- 
ten masterpieces  for  the  stage.  He  is  not  quite 
a  great  lyric  poet,  nor  a  great  novelist;  poetic 
drama  would  have  allowed  his  genius  to  become 
more  articulate.  It  is  highly  significant  of  the 
domination  of  the  Novel  that  this  man  should 
have  elected  to  write  in  that  form ;  also  a  great 
compliment  to  the  Novel. 

George  Meredith  was  not  so  complete  a  Pagan 
as  Thomas  Hardy,  but  he  was  essentially  Pa- 
gan ;  his  real  emphasis  is  on  this  life  and  on  this 
present  world;  he  speaks  vaguely  of  God,  but 
the  Divine  Power  has  no  important  role  in  his 
books,  either  as  an  immanent  force  or  as  our 
Father  in  Heaven.    His  men  and  women  get 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  171 

along  somehow  without  religion,  and  fight  their 
own  battles  without  looking  up.  Yet  Hardy  is 
an  avowed  pessimist,  and  Meredith's  novels  al- 
ways give  the  impression  of  optimism.  With 
no  premises  but  the  external  world  and  its  his- 
tory to  work  from,  Hardy  reaches  pessimism 
and  Meredith  optimism.  This  latter  conclusion 
is  perhaps  owing  to  two  factors. 

First,  Meredith  was  hearty,  robust,  genial, 
buoyant ;  his  men  and  women  delight  in  violent 
exercise,  eat  copious  meals,  and  rejoice  in  old 
wine ;  they  find  the  world  jovial,  and  add  to  its 
joviality.  Hardy,  on  the  other  hand,  while  ten- 
derly sympathetic,  and  delicately  responsive, 
has  little  geniality.  He  watches  people  feast- 
ing, but  cannot  feast  himself;  he  is  sorry  for 
them,  feeling  sure  that  tears  will  follow  laugh- 
ter. If  he  ultimately  reaches  heaven,  as  through 
his  sincerity  and  tenderness  he  ought  to,  his 
occupation  will  be  gone,  for  there  both  sympa- 
thy and  lamentation  should  be  superfluous. 

Second,  Meredith  believed  (at  least  artisti- 
cally) that  men  and  women  are  not  passive  in- 
struments of  Fate;  he  thought  that  men  and 


172  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

women  can  conquer  heredity,  environment,  yes, 
fate  itself;  his  stout-hearted  heroes  and  hero- 
ines are  at  all  times  masters  of  their  own  des- 
tiny. The  fault,  dear  Brutus,  is  not  in  our 
stars,  but  in  ourselves,  that  we  are  underlings. 
In  Hardy's  eyes,  we  are  mere  bits  of  the  vast 
machine;  we  have  no  more  influence  than  the 
spoke  of  a  fly-wheel;  we  do  not  have  to  wait 
until  we  are  dead  before  we  are  rolled  round 
with  rocks,  and  stones,  and  trees. 

Thomas  Hardy's  superiority  as  a  novelist 
over  Meredith  consists  mainly  in  three  things : 
the  perfection  of  constructive  power  (no  novel- 
ist was  ever  a  better  architect),  the  beautiful 
stately  march  of  his  style  (first  chapter  of  Re- 
turn of  the  Native,  or  Gabriel  Oak  telling  time 
by  the  stars),  and  the  universal  character  of  his 
dramatis  personce.  For,  after  all,  Meredith 
deals  merely  with  interesting  groups  of  people, 
only  occasionally,  as  in  Clara  Middleton,  show- 
ing the  type;  while  all  Hardy's  folk  have  the 
touch  of  nature.  They  interest  us  not  because 
of  their  individuality,  but  because  they  are  so 
poignantly  human. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  173 

On  the  second  of  July,  1905,  Meredith  wrote 
in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  **  Hardy  was  here  some 
days  back.  I  am  always  glad  to  see  him,  and 
have  regrets  at  his  going ;  for  the  double  reason, 
that  I  like  him,  and  am  afflicted  by  his  twilight 
view  of  life."  And  one  can  hardly  conceive  of 
Mr.  Hardy  writing  so  jovial  a  letter  as  this, 
written  when  Meredith  was  about  forty  years 
old.  **I  am  every  morning  on  the  top  of  Box 
Hill — as  its  flower,  its  bird,  its  prophet.  I 
drop  down  the  moon  on  one  side,  I  draw  up  the 
sun  on  t'other.  I  breathe  fine  air.  I  shout  ha 
ha  to  the  gates  of  the  world.  Then  I  descend 
and  know  myself  a  donkey  for  doing  it."  The 
last  sentence  betrays  the  Englishman. 

Meredith  had  the  modern  contempt  for  asceti- 
cism. In  a  letter  to  the  Eev.  Dr.  Jessopp,  he 
said,  *'Can  I  morally  admire,  or  reverence,  or 
see  positive  virtue  in  St.  Simeon?  Was  he  a 
hero,  of  his  kind?  Does  the  contemplation  of 
him  bring  us  nearer  to  God?  To  what  a  God! 
I  turn  aching  in  all  my  flesh  to  adore  the  Pagan, 
in  preference.  .  .  .  Don't  you  see  that  it  ii  not 
adoration  moves  the  stinking  Saint,  but,  basest 


174  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

of  prostrations,  Terror.  ...  Be  not  misled  by 
this  dirty  piece  of  picturesque  Religiosity,  ani- 
mated :  my  gorge  rises !  I  hold  my  nostrils.  I 
cry  for  a  Southwest  ^\dnd  to  arise. ' ' 

As  a  final  word  on  Meredith's  religion,  it  is 
well  to  cite  what  he  wrote  about  prayer,  in  a 
long  letter  to  his  son.  **Look  for  the  truth  in 
everything,  and  follow  it,  and  you  will  then  be 
living  justly  before  God.  Let  nothing  flout  your 
sense  of  a  Supreme  Being,  and  be  certain  that 
your  understanding  wavers  whenever  you 
chance  to  doubt  that  he  leads  to  good.  We  grow 
to  good  as  surely  as  the  plant  grows  to  the  light. 
The  school  has  only  to  look  through  history  for 
a  scientific  assurance  of  it.  And  do  not  lose 
the  habit  of  praying  to  the  unseen  Divinity. 
Prayer  for  worldly  goods  is  worse  than  fruit- 
less, but  prayer  for  strength  of  soul  is  that 
passion  of  the  soul  which  catches  the  gift  it 
seeks.'' 

Over  and  over  again  he  points  out  the  eternal 
consequences  of  acts.  In  Rhoda  Fleming,  he 
says  that  we  are  immortal  not  in  what  we  are, 
but  in  what  we  do ;  our  acts  go  on  forever,  and 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  175 

it  is  only  fools  who  think  they  can  do  anything 
and  somehow  avoid  the  consequences. 

We  feel  certain  that  Meredith  was  a  Theorist, 
a  Philosopher,  a  Moralist,  and  a  Teacher.  But 
it  is  impossible  to  say  exactly  what  his  theory 
of  life  was,  whither  his  philosophy  led  him,  on 
what  his  system  of  ethics  was  founded,  and  pre- 
cisely what  it  is  he  teaches.  Dickens  represents 
Sin  as  something  repulsive  and  malignant,  and 
sinners  as  malicious ;  look  at  Quilp.  Meredith 
represents  sin  as  Folly,  and  sinners  as  Fools. 
Sir  Willoughby  is  an  ass ;  the  two  young  men  in 
Rhoda  Fleming  are  fools;  the  one  who  repents 
seems  simply  to  become  sane ;  the  other  remains 
a  fool,  a  fool  positive.  When  the  husband  of 
her  friend  tries  to  put  his  arm  around  Diana's 
waist,  he  is  represented  as  not  so  criminal  as 
silly,  and  he  is  forgiven.  To  be  sure,  the  at- 
tempt is  the  only  kind  of  compliment  some  men 
know  how  to  pay  a  woman. 

Meredith's  hatred  of  asceticism  and  conven- 
tional standards  led  him  in  his  later  work  near 
the  borders  of  the  rather  dangerous  doctrine 
that  the  instincts  of  the  heart  are  superior  to 


176  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

the  statute-book.  We  must  trust  nature,  he 
seems  to  say,  which  is,  of  course,  pagan  rather 
than  Christian  doctrine.  Meredith  did  not  be- 
lieve with  Jeremiah  and  Browning  in  the  de- 
eeitfulness  and  corruption  of  man's  heart. 
Clara  is  absolutely  right  in  breaking  the  engage- 
ment; Diana  was  right  in  cultivating  an  inti- 
macy with  an  outsider ;  and  in  Lord  Ormont,  the 
final  step  is  taken :  Aminta  leaves  her  husband, 
simply  because  she  loves  another  man. 

A  contemporary  reviewer  (1894)  said  of  this 
book  that  the  exposition  and  the  story  were 
easily  detachable.  The  story  is  pretty  and  al- 
most to  the  end,  natural.  The  exposition  is 
worthless.  One  hardened  critic  said  he  felt 
very  uncomfortable  in  reading  the  book  because 
''Aminta  had  no  case  that  could  be  granted  in 
a  Sioux  City  divorce  court.''  Now  do  we  ad- 
mire Thackeray  less,  or  more,  because  he  re- 
fused to  yield  to  his  passion  for  Mrs.  Brook- 
field? 

Not  only  did  Meredith  glorify  the  instincts  of 
the  heart  at  the  expense  of  law  and  order,  he 
glorified  the  liberty  of  the  individual  above  all 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  177 

discipline.  He  himself  had  an  undisciplined 
mind,  and  hated  system;  what  would  he  have 
thought  of  Germany  to-day?  Consider  his  at- 
titude toward  the  boy  Crossjay  in  the  Egoist, 
and  think  what  the  **  system"  did  to  Kichard 
Feverel.  In  attempting  to  create  our  sympa- 
thy for  Diana  after  her  crooked  transaction,  he 
made  not  only  a  moral  but  an  artistic  error, 
and  was  partially  aware  of  it,  for  in  a  letter 
written  in  1884,  he  said,  **  Diana  of  the  Cross- 
ways  keeps  me  still  on  her  sad  last  way  to  wed- 
lock. I  could  have  killed  her  merrily,  with  my 
compliments  to  the  public ;  and  that  was  my  in- 
tention. ' ' 

Meredith  is  the  most  chivalrous  of  novelists, 
and  women  ought  to  be  fond  of  him.  He  loved 
Diana,  even  though  he  made  her  sell  the  news ; 
and  he  will  not  forgive  her  fiance  because  the 
latter  will  not  forgive  her.  Eedworth  is  the 
real  lover;  he  loves  Diana,  not  her  attributes. 
After  all,  we  don't  love  people  for  their  quali- 
ties, but  for  themselves.  Meredith  believed  ar- 
dently in  woman  suffrage,  and  though  he  coun- 
selled the  militants  against  violence,  it  was  clear 


178  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

that  lie  sympathised  with  them.  He  said  they 
must  have  patience  and  not  think  that  John  Bull 
will  move  for  a  solitary  kick.  His  attitude 
toward  Diana,  Lucy,  Ehoda  and  Aminta  affords 
sufficient  illustration  of  his  chivalrous  love  of 
women. 

Akin  to  this  feeling — and  as  un-English  as  his 
love  of  France — ^was  his  appreciation  and  glori- 
fication of  the  Irish.  He  loved  the  Celtic  race 
with  all  his  heart.  His  Irish  characters  illu- 
minate his  pages;  they  shine  in  strong  and  in- 
tentional contrast  with  the  stolid  Englishmen. 
I  think  he  loved  them  mainly  for  their  chival- 
rous lack  of  prudence,  for  their  dash  and  reck- 
lessness. In  Diana,  we  find  the  following  ob- 
servation: **  English  women  and  men  feel 
toward  the  quick-witted  of  their  species  as  to 
aliens,  having  the  demerits  of  aliens — wordi- 
ness, vanity,  obscurity,  shallowness,  an  empty 
glitter,  the  sin  of  posturing. '' 

Those  who  have  never  read  anything  of  Mere- 
dith, which  includes  the  vast  majority  of  the 
earth's  inhabitants,  ought  to  begin  with  Ehoda 
Fleming,    It  is  not  only  the  most  normal  in 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  179 

style  of  all  his  compositions,  it  is  in  many  ways 
the  most  powerfully  dramatic.  The  conflict 
here  is  between  natures  that  do  not  and  cannot 
understand  one  another;  natures  whose  hearts 
break,  but  cannot  bend.  Besides  the  leading  ac- 
tors, an  indelible  impression  is  left  on  the 
reader's  mind  by  the  farmhand  Gammon.  In  a 
house  black  with  awful  tragedy,  this  clod  eats 
prodigious  meals  with  undiminished  appetite, 
and  thus  exerts  a  wholesome  influence  on  all  the 
inmates;  unconsciously  he  is  a  philosopher, 
showing  both  the  importunate  necessity,  and 
the  healing  power,  of  food  and  sleep.  It  is  plain 
that  Meredith  is  in  hearty  sympathy  with  him. 

The  characters  in  Meredith's  novels  are  not 
as  a  rule  abnormal  or  indeed  unusual ;  they  are 
presented  to  the  reader  in  an  abnormal  and  un- 
usual manner.  He  dresses  them  up  in  astonish- 
ing motley ;  could  we  strip  their  souls  bare,  they 
would  be  just  like  other  folks.  It  is  the  same 
with  his  incidents;  he  uses  an  extraordinary 
style  to  describe  ordinary  events. 

In  the  Egoist,  what  kind  of  a  girl  was  Clara? 
Simply  a  **very  nice  girl."    Her  chief  claim  to 


180  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

our  admiration  is  her  personal  beauty.  There 
is  nothing  remarkable  about  her  mind  or  tem- 
perament, and  she  might  easily  be  found  in  a 
novel  by  Kobert  W.  Chambers.  The  distance 
between  Mr.  Chambers  and  Meredith  is  in  the 
expense  of  energy.  Clara  is  normal,  like  the 
young  girls  in  our  popular  American  writer; 
but  Meredith  uses  all  the  artillery  of  his  mind  in 
bombarding  the  reader  with  presentations,  in- 
troductions, comments,  so  that  we  finally  take 
in  Clara  from  every  conceivable  angle. 

Like  most  thoughtful  men,  Meredith  was  im- 
pressed with  the  devouring  selfishness  of  the  or- 
dinary male.  This  is  brought  out  in  one  of  the 
earliest  and  perhaps  the  greatest  of  his  novels, 
The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel,  where  the  hero- 
ine is  illogically  killed  in  order  to  emphasise 
the  text.  In  the  ^Egoist,  of  course,  we  have  a 
powerful,  minute,  and  prolonged  analysis  of  the 
one  unpardonable  sin.  Sir  Willoughby  is  a 
blighting  and  ubiquitous  curse;  and  the  most 
cruel  moment  for  him  is  when  at  last  there 
crosses  his  brain  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  of  his 
own  perfection. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  181 

I  remember  Meredith  for  certain  scenes 
rather  than  for  certain  books ;  it  may  be  a  dam- 
aging admission,  but  I  have  never  wished  a 
single  one  of  his  novels  to  be  longer,  and  am 
usually  heartily  glad  when  I  come  to  the  end. 
For  all  his  display  of  fireworks,  I  find  myself 
forgetting  his  plots,  forgetting  his  characters ; 
I  remember  the  horsewhip  in  Beauchamp's 
Career  more  vividly  than  any  of  the  men  or 
women,  and  I  should  dislike  to  humiliate  any  of 
my  friends  by  asking  them  pointblank  to  give  an 
accurate  resume  of  the  story.  The  idyllic  river 
scene  in  Richard  Fever  el,  the  parting  of  Eichard 
and  Lucy — these  stay  bright  in  the  memory. 

I  am  certain  that  Meredith's  style  gets  be- 
tween the  reader  and  the  characters  like  a 
hedge;  at  times  it  is  completely  opaque.  He 
was  too  much  in  love  with  his  phrases,  and  must 
have  thought  them  better  than  they  really  are. 
For  although  it  is  blasphemous  to  say  so,  I  re- 
gard the  aphorisms  in  Richard  Feverel  as  in- 
ferior to  the  aphorisms  in  Pudd'nhead  Wilson, 

Meredith  himself  was  a  thousand  times  more 
interesting  than  any  of  his  works.    The  best 


182  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

part  of  all  his  stories  is  where  he  shows  us  most 
of  himself.  It  is  vain  to  classify  him,  to  call 
him  realist  or  romanticist.  The  marine  duet  in 
Lord  Ormont  is  pure  romanticism,  but  the  elec- 
tion scenes  in  Beauchamp  are  pure  realism. 
As  a  rule,  however,  Meredith  never  shows  us 
our  world,  as  Jane  Austen  does ,  he  gives  us  tan- 
talising, fragmentary  glimpses  of  his  world. 

Meredith  and  Browning  were  alike  in  their 
tremendous  masculinity,  in  their  pre-occupation 
with  the  passion  of  love,  and  in  their  capacity 
for  profound  introspection.  No  intelligent 
reader  of  literature  can  fail  to  notice  the  points 
of  similarity.  Oscar  Wilde  summed  them  up 
ironically  by  saying,  **  Meredith  is  a  prose 
Browning;  and  so  is  Browning." 

With  Tennyson — ^both  in  his  art  and  in  his 
viewpoint — Meredith  had  nothing  in  common. 
The  delicacy  and  conventionality  of  The  Idylls 
of  the  King  infuriated  Meredith.  'VThe  Eoly 
Grail  is  wonderful,  isn't  it?  The  lines  are  satin 
lengths,  the  figures  Sevres  china.  I  have  not 
the  courage  to  offer  to  review  it.  I  should  say 
such  things.    To  think! — it's  in  these  days  that 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  183 

the  foremost  poet  of  the  country  goes  on  fluting 
of  creatures  that  have  not  a  breath  of  vital  hu- 
manity in  them  ...  to  hear  the  chorus  of 
praise  too !  Why,  this  stuff  is  not  the  Muse,  it 's 
Musery.  ...  I  read  the  successive  mannered 
lines  with  pain — ^yards  of  linen-drapery  for  the 
delight  of  ladies  who  would  be  in  the  fashion." 

Shortly  before  his  death,  Meredith  unwill- 
ingly attempted  to  appraise  his  novels.  In  this 
fashion  he  spoke:  **I  have  not  made  any  esti- 
mate of  the  value  of  my  books  in  prose.  .  .  . 
The  Egoist  comes  nearer  than  the  other  books 
to  the  proper  degree  of  roundness  and  finish. 
In  Diana  of  the  Crossways  my  critics  own  that 
a  breathing  woman  is  produced,  and  I  felt  that 
she  was  in  me  as  I  wrote.  Rhoda  Fleming  is 
liked  by  some,  not  much  by  me.  Richard  Fev- 
erel  was  earnestly  conceived,  and  is  in  some 
points  worthy  of  thought.  Beauchamp's  Ca- 
reer does  not  probe  so  deeply,  but  is  better  work 
on  the  surface. — ^I  have  treated  my  books  of 
prose  as  the  mother  bird  her  fledgelings. ' ' 

Perhaps  the  best  thing  he  ever  said  of  his 
own  work  occurs  in  his  novel  Beauchamp's  Co- 


184  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

reer,  although  being  in  a  novel,  instead  of  in  a 
private  letter,  the  style  of  saying  it  is  too  con- 
sciously elaborate.  *  ^  Those  happy  tales  of  mys- 
tery are  as  much  my  envy  as  the  popular  narra- 
tives of  the  deeds  of  bread  and  cheese  people, 
for  they  both  create  a  tideway  in  the  attentive 
mind;  the  mysterious  pricking  our  credulous 
flesh  to  creep,  the  familiar  urging  our  obese 
imagination  to  constitutional  exercise.  And 
oh,  the  refreshment  there  is  in  dealing  with 
characters  either  contemptibly  beneath  us,  or 
supernaturally  above !  My  way  is  like  a  Ehone 
island  in  the  summer  drought,  stony,  unattract- 
ive and  difficult  between  the  two  forceful 
streams  of  the  unreal  and  the  over-real,  which 
delight  mankind — ^honour  to  the  conjurers !  My 
people  conquer  nothing,  win  none ;  they  are  ac- 
tual, yet  uncommon.  It  is  the  clockwork  of  the 
brain  that  they  are  directed  to  set  in  motion, 
and — ^poor  troop  of  actors  to  empty  benches ! — 
the  conscience  residing  in  thoughtfulness  which 
they  would  appeal  to ;  and  if  you  are  there  im- 
pervious to  them,  we  are  lost ;  back  I  go  to  my 
wilderness,  where,  as  you  perceive,  I  have  con- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  185 

tracted  the  habit  of  listening  to  my  own  voice 
more  than  is  good." 

Meredith  was  a  fantastic  genius,  often  reach- 
ing the  sublime,  often  the  absurd.  The  **leg" 
business  in  The  Egoist  is  irritatingly  ridiculous, 
and  could  hardly  have  been  survived  by  a  lesser 
man;  his  conversations  often  become  fantasti- 
cal, and  he  leads  us  to  heights  where  we  breathe 
rarefied  air,  rather  than  the  invigorating  breeze 
of  the  uplands.  His  pictures  of  Nature  are 
sometimes  glorious,  sometimes  abominably  over- 
done. The  school  scene  with  which  Lord  Or- 
mont  closes  is  fantastical,  and  amid  the  dialogue 
and  incidents  of  The  Amazing  Marriage  the 
reader  moves  in  a  luminous  mist. 

If  we  live  long  enough,  it  will  be  interesting 
to  watch  the  oscillations  of  Meredith's  reputa- 
tion, and  to  see  where  he  finally  comes  to  rest. 
One  irate  journalist  wrote  of  him  some  twenty 
years  ago,  *  *  The  public  which  so  long  neglected 
him  was  right.  The  public  which  now  reads 
him  is  a  conscientious  public.  It  has  been 
taught  to  think  it  likes  him,  or  ought  to  like  him. 
It  does  not  like  him ;  and  the  wave  of  incomplete 


186  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

popularity,  swollen  by  adroit  advertising,  will 
presently  spend  its  force  and  leave  Mr.  Mere- 
dith permanently  stranded  on  a  desolate  shore. ' ' 

Well,  he  is  still  afloat,  despite  the  storms  of 
time  and  the  torpedoes  of  critics.  If  he  remains 
on  the  ocean  of  literature,  it  will  be  because  his 
natural  genius  was  so  great  and  his  own  mind 
so  interesting  that  there  will  always  be  a  select 
class  of  experienced  travellers  who  will  enjoy 
voyages  in  his  company. 

We  in  America,  who  have  always  liked  him 
better  and  understood  him  more  sympathetically 
than  his  own  countrymen,  ought  to  remember 
him  with  pleasure,  because  he  spoke  so  warmly 
of  us.  In  a  letter  written  in  1886,  he  said, 
'*  Americans  appear  to  have  received  my  work 
very  generously.  Since  their  most  noble  clos- 
ing of  the  Civil  War,  I  have  looked  to  them  as 
the  hope  of  our  civilisation.  .  .  .  Therefore  I 
am  justly  flattered  by  their  praise,  if  I  win  it ; 
their  censure,  if  they  deal  it  to  me,  I  meditate 
on." 

Just  three  months  before  his  death,  he  wrote, 
'*The  English,  unlike  the  Americans,  have  not 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  187 

accepted  me  in  the  form  of  a  poet.  I  had  to 
pay  for  the  publication  of  my  books  of  verse. 
Indeed,  the  run  of  the  novels  started  from 
American  appreciation. ' ' 

Of  the  bright  array  of  eminent  Victorian 
British  novelists,  only  one  remains  alive — 
Thomas  Hardy.  He  is  three-quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury old,  but  it  is  not  the  dignity  of  age  that 
gives  him  his  present  commanding  position  in 
literature ;  it  is  the  simple  fact  that  of  all  living 
English  novelists,  none  can  possibly  be  consid- 
ered his  rival.  We  may  indeed  truthfully  omit 
the  word  English;  there  is  no  writer  in  the 
world  to-day  whose  prose  fiction  is  of  equal 
value.  His  first  novel  was  published  in  1871, 
and  then  for  twenty-five  years  his  works  ap- 
peared with  no  real  pause. 

With  a  third  of  his  life  he  seems  to  have 
achiefved  immortality.  What  has  he  done  with 
the  other  two-thirds?  Grown  up,  practised  ar- 
chitecture, written  much  verse,  and  for  the  last 
twenty  years  appeared  before  the  public  as  a 
professional    poet    and    historical    dramatist. 


188  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

G-ranville  Barker  had  the  audacity  to  put  The 
^Dynasts  on  the  stage.  His  next  attempt  will 
perhaps  be  the  Encyclopcedia  Britannica, 

Mr.  Hardy's  mind  is  so  interesting,  so  richly 
meditative,  so  pregnant  in  fancy,  and  his  view 
of  art  so  architecturally  orderly,  that  anything 
and  everything  he  writes  has  both  value  and 
charm;  but  I  regard  these  last  twenty  years 
sadly,  as  I  think  what  might  have  been ;  just  as 
I  regret  the  twenty  years  that  Milton  spent  in 
politics,  and  as  I  rejoice  over  Goethe's  refusal 
to  do  so,  or  even  to  become  '* patriotic." 
Genius  is  the  scarcest  thing  on  earth  except  ra- 
dium; and  to  see  it  wasted  is  like  being  adrift 
in  an  open  boat  and  watching  some  one  wasting 
fresh  water. 

Mr.  Hardy  has  written  fifteen  novels :  ten  are 
works  of  genius.  I  except  Desperate  Remedies 
because  of  its  immaturity;  The  Hand  of  Ethel- 
berta  because  of  its  triviality;  The  Romantic 
[Adventures  of  a  Milkmaid  because  of  its  slen- 
derness  in  content ;  Jude  the  Obscure  because  of 
its  hysterical  exaggeration;  The  Well-Beloved 
because   of  its  unreality.    There  remain  ten 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  189 

great  contributions  to  English  fiction,  ten 
great  novels,  a  few  of  wMch,  like  The  Return  of 
the  Native,  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd,  and 
Tess,  are  established  classics  in  literature,  so 
far  as  we  of  to-day  can  see.  And  a  person  who 
should  like  The  Woodlanders  best  of  all — 
though  I  do  not,  preferrin^c^  The  Return  of  the 
Native — would  have  no  need  to  apologise. 

Mr.  Hardy  adhered  to  the  old  Victorian  tra- 
dition in  publishing  his  novels  serially.  Of  the 
fifteen  novels,  twelve  appeared  in  successive  in- 
stalments in  periodicals.  In  fact,  only  the  first 
two  originally  appeared  in  book  form.  Has 
this  method  had  anything  to  do  with  the  author's 
skill  in  holding  his  reader  in  suspense?  Per- 
haps not ;  though  it  is  well  to  remember  the  fact 
in  studying  the  construction  of  Far  From  the 
Madding  Crowd,  True  it  is,  that  although  Mr. 
Hardy's  novels  are  full  of  solidly  satisfying 
qualities,  not  even  Conan  Doyle  or  Phillips  Op- 
penheim  has  any  more  power  in  compelling  the 
reader  to  turn  the  next  page.  The  difference 
is  that  if  one  tells  you  in  advance  the  outcome  of 
a  story  by  these  lesser  worthies,  your  interest  is 


190  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

dead;  who  reads  Oppenheim  twice?  Whereas 
Mr.  Hardy's  books  gain  in  excitement  every 
time  I  read  them,  and  there  is  only  one  where 
a  knowledge  of  the  conclusion  subtracts  much 
from  the  interest — A  Laodicean;  that  book  is 
different  from  all  the  rest  of  the  work  of  its 
author,  and  was  written  under  peculiar  circum- 
stances. 

Mr.  Hardy  is  just  beginning  to  be  known  in 
France ;  I  think  he  will  eventually  conquer  the 
Continent.  Although  his  subjects  are  insular, 
his  style  is  not,  and  his  thoughts  wander  through 
eternity.  Mr.  Hardy  writes  as  though  he  lived 
on  another  planet,  and  by  means  of  some  tre- 
mendous astronomical  contrivance,  were  able 
to  see  earth's  inhabitants  life-size,  and  regard 
them  with  the  exclusive  attention  of  a  student, 
himself  entirely  remote  from  their  concerns. 
He  feels  as  the  astronomer  of  the  Lick  observa- 
tory felt,  when  he  turned  the  mighty  telescope 
on  flaming  San  Francisco ;  he  breathed  the  keen, 
cool  air  of  the  mountain-top ;  but  brought  close 
within  his  vision  were  some  hundreds  of  thous- 
ands of  people  living  in  hell.    The  astronomer's 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  191 

heart  was  wrung  with  pity  at  the  spectacle ;  pity 
and  horror ;  but  there  was  nothing  he  could  do, 
except  continue  to  look.  Man's  extremity  is 
Mr.  Hardy's  opportunity;  but  it  is  an  opportun- 
ity only  for  art.  Pessimism  will  help  us  all,  he 
believes,  by  taking  forever  away  illusory  hopes 
which  fade  into  anguish ;  those  who  expect  noth- 
ing cannot  be  disappointed.  The  fagade  of  a 
prison,  he  thinks,  is  more  cheerful  to  contem- 
plate than  the  facade  of  a  palace.  At  any  rate 
we  know  it  to  be  a  prison,  and  enter  it  with  sub- 
missive despair ;  much  better  so  than  to  have  it 
resemble  a  palace  outside. 


CHAPTEE  Vm 

GALSWOKTHY  AND  OTHEKS 

The  triple  combination  in  Joseph  Conrad — his  lack  of 
popularity — ^not  a  refractor,  but  a  reflector — ^his  tales  of  the 
sea — his  silent  women — ethical  value  of  his  work — John 
Galsworthy — a  satirist — ^his  hatred  of  British  hypocrisy — 
his  mistake  in  The  Dark  Flower — J.  M.  Barrie — ^the  con- 
trast between  Sentimental  Tommy  and  Tommy  and  Grizzel 
— May  Sinclair — Mary  Willcocks. 

Many  years  ago,  when  I  read  for  the  first  time 
The  Constitutional  History  of  the  United  States, 
written  by  a  gentleman  in  the  Black  Forest 
called  Hermann  von  Hoist,  I  was  impressed  by 
his  prefatory  remark  (in  English)  that  whereas 
there  had  been  many  histories  of  the  United 
States,  none  had  equalled  this  in  soberness  of 
mind.  Although  it  might  have  sounded  better 
if  some  one  else  had  said  it,  the  remark  was  in- 
structive, and  serves  to  separate  sheep  from 
goats  in  modern  novels.  What  contemporary 
English  novelists  write  with  soberness  of  mind? 
Surely  not  Hall  Caine,  or  Conan  Doyle,  or  Flor- 

192 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  193 

ence  Barclay,  or  Kobert  Hichens.  Mr.  Wells 
and  Mr.  Bennett*?  Sometimes,  but  not  all  the 
time.  Thomas  Hardy,  always;  and  with  equal 
soberness,  though  not  with  equal  felicity, 
Joseph  Conrad,  J.  M.  Barrie,  John  Galsworthy, 
Miss  Sinclair,  and  Miss  Willcocks.  No  modern 
novelists  have  higher  ideals  than  these  five. 

The  ability  to  write  for  publication  in  a 
language  other  than  one's  mother-tongue  is  not 
altogether  unknown;  as  is  shown  by  the  in- 
stances of  Turgenev,  Maarten  Maartens,  Oscar 
Wilde,  and  Eabindranath  Tagore.  But  the  case 
of  Joseph  Conrad  is  unique.  He  knew  no  Eng- 
lish at  all  until  he  was  nineteen,  and  it  was  not 
until  his  thirty-eighth  year  that  he  published 
anything.  When  he  determined  to  become  an 
author,  his  perplexity  was  quite  unlike  the  ob- 
stacle that  balks  most  writers.  The  question 
that  Mr.  Conrad  put  to  himself  was,  '^In  what 
language  shall  I  write?"  Now  that  is  not  the 
question  that  troubles  the  mind  of  most  men  of 
letters.  The  question  that  afllicts  their  peace 
is  not.  In  what  language  shall  I  write,  but  What 
shall  I  say?    I  have  read  a  great  many  novels, 


194  THE  ADVANCE  OP 

and  it  is  plain  that  in  the  majority  of  cases  this 
latter  is  the  paramount  issue. 

Mr.  Conrad's  mother-tongue  is,  of  course, 
Polish;  but  although  he  had  before  him  the  ex- 
ample of  Sienkiewicz,  there  was  to  be  nothing  of 
Poland  in  the  books  to  be  written,  and  every  rea- 
son why  he  should  make  a  direct  appeal  to  a 
wider  audience  than  could  possibly  be  found 
among  his  countrymen.  His  first  intention  was 
to  write  in  French,  a  language  he  had  known 
from  childhood;  this  impulse  was  strengthened 
by  the  fact  that  he  was  deeply  read  in  French 
fiction,  and  really  learned  the  novelist's  art  from 
French  masters.  He  has  a  keen  admiration  for 
Flaubert  and  De  Maupassant ;  and  has  success- 
fully imitated  their  calm,  deliberate,  impersonal 
style.  But  he  had  sailed  many  years  under  an 
English  flag;  he  knew  he  must  write  stories  of 
the  sea;  his  closest  friends  were  all  English; 
and  he  loved  the  vigour  of  the  English  tongue. 
His  experiences  as  transmuted  into  fiction  would 
appeal  to  Anglo-Saxons  more  than  to  any  other 
people;  and  these  causes  combined  placed  him 
in  English  literature.    It  is  a  great  compliment 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  195 

to  our  language  that  so  thoughtful  and  ambi- 
tious a  man  should  select  it  out  of  a  possible 
three. 

Teodor  Jozef  Konrad  Korzeniovski  was  born 
in  the  south  of  Poland,  on  the  sixth  of  Decem- 
ber, 1857.  He  had  splendid  intellectual  ances- 
try. For  generations  his  family  had  been  men 
of  fine  mental  powers,  and,  what  is  much  rarer 
among  the  Slavs,  of  great  practical  vigour  and 
resolution.  His  father  was  a  revolutionist  in 
1862,  aiid  was  imprisoned,  dying  in  1870.  His 
mother  was  exiled  to  Siberia,  and  died  in  1865. 
At  the  age  of  twelve  he  had  thus  lost  both  his 
parents,  and  perhaps  began  then  to  develop  that 
calm  self-reliance  so  peculiarly  characteristic 
of  him.  As  a  lad,  he  longed  to  get  away  from 
inland  Poland  and  see  the  ends  of  the  earth ;  he 
particularly  had  to  a  high  degree  what  every 
healthy  boy  has  in  some  measure — the  passion 
of  the  sea.  In  his  stories  Heart  of  Darkness 
and  Youth,  there  are  many  autobiographical 
passages  illustrative  of  his  wanderlust. 

It  was  in  1878  that  he  first  saw  England.  He 
settled  in  Lowestoft  (shades  of  Dickens!)  and 


196  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

scraped  acquaintance  with  all  kinds  of  fishers 
and  sea-faring  men.  He  shipped  on  board  a 
coasting-vessel,  kept  his  observant  eyes  open, 
studied  English,  studied  navigation,  and  after 
some  time  secured  a  mate 's  certificate.  Then  he 
made  his  first  voyage  to  the  East,  the  effect  of 
which  on  his  sensitive  mind  is  shown  in  Youth; 
this  story  exhibits  his  intellectual  eagerness  and 
the  vivid  impression  made  by  an  exotic  world  on 
his  fresh  young  heart. 

For  nearly  twenty  years  he  was  a  sailor-man, 
in  the  good  old  times  before  the  supremacy  of 
steam.  During  the  long  days  out  of  sight  of 
land  he  was  constantly  and  unconsciously  col- 
lecting material  for  his  novels.  During  the  long 
watches  of  the  night  his  profound  and  intro- 
spective Slav  mind  meditated  deeply,  turning 
over  and  over  thoughts  that  were  some  day  to 
appear  on  the  printed  page.  For  even  in  the 
most  objective  of  Conrad's  books,  there  is  al- 
ways the  reflective  cast.  His  only  attempts  at 
composition  were  to  be  found  in  the  log-book, 
and  in  occasional  letters  to  his  kin  in  Poland. 

Once  John  Galsworthy  was  a  passenger.    If 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  197 

gossip  be  true,  the  Englishman's  attention  was 
attracted  to  the  ship's  officer  bj  the  latter 's 
loud  and  fluent  and  picturesque  profanity;  all 
of  which  he  must  have  used  up  at  sea,  for  there 
is  almost  no  swearing  in  his  books.  At  all 
events,  the  two  men  became  intimate  friends, 
and  have  something  higher  than  admiration  for 
each  other's  art. 

In  1894 — great  year  of  modern  fiction — 
Mr.  Conrad  quit  the  sea,  and  looked  over  the 
completed  manuscript  of  Almayer's  Folly, 
which  he  had  begun  some  years  before.  He 
took  lodgings  in  London  and  determined  to 
spend  six  months  in  absolute  laziness,  for,  as  he 
expresses  it,  *^he  was  seized,  suddenly  and  inex- 
plicably, by  a  desire  to  rest."  He  had  dropped 
his  last  Polish  name,  for  it  is  not  pleasant  even 
to  men  less  sensitive  than  Conrad  to  hear  their 
own  family  appellation  invariably  mispro- 
nounced. 

In  1895  appeared  his  first  novel,  and  since 
that  time  the  history  of  his  life  is  the  history 
of  his  publications,  novel  following  novel  at 
regular  and  decent  intervals.    No  living  man  is 


198  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

better  qualified  for  the  literary  profession. 
His  many  years  of  active  life,  going  down  to  the 
sea  in  ships,  have  stocked  his  mind  with  a  super- 
abundance of  dramatic  material ;  his  wide  read- 
ing in  three  modern  literatures  has  taught  him 
much  about  the  art  of  composition ;  his  sharply 
sensitive  and  profoundly  reflective  Slav  tem- 
perament has  given  to  his  observations  and  re- 
flections a  quaintly  original  flavour.  His  face 
to  some  extent  is  a  map  of  his  soul.  He  looks 
like  a  competent,  fearless,  and  highly  intelligent 
clipper  captain.  His  eyes  have  looked  on  the 
brutality  of  nature  and  the  brutality  of  man,  and 
are  unafraid.  It  is  not  an  adventurous  face; 
it  has  nothing  of  George  Meredith's  reckless- 
ness. It  is  a  face  that  knows  the  worst  of  the 
ocean  and  the  worst  of  the  heart  of  man,  and 
while  taking  no  risks,  realising  all  dangers,  is 
calmly,  pessimistically  resolute.  This  is  not  the 
man  to  lead  a  forlorn  hope,  but  unquestionably 
the  man  to  leave  in  charge ;  grave,  steady,  relia- 
ble. 

Apart  from  his  seamanship.  He  has  a  really 
extraordinary  endowment  and  equipment  as  a 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  199 

novelist.  A  Slav  by  birth,  a  Frenchman  in 
training,  an  Anglo-Saxon  in  activity!  His 
Slavonic  genius  is  shown  in  the  skill  with  which 
he  has  acquired  the  English  language ;  tempera- 
mentally, it  is  shown  in  his  aloofness;  his  lack 
of  prejudice;  his  sincerity,  dignity,  and  truth- 
fulness. The  most  Slavonic  of  all  his  novels  is, 
of  course,  Under  Western  Eyes,  reminiscent  of 
Dostoevski;  but  the  temperament  appears  in 
them  all,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Victory, 
a  novel  quite  unworthy  of  him,  and  which  he  has 
apparently  tried  to  write  in  a  manner  not  his 
own. 

His  mastery  of  English  is  marvellous,  because 
his  chief  glory  is  perhaps  his  style,  something 
that  only  Stevenson  has  combined  with  sea-fic- 
tion. Smollett,  Scott,  Cooper,  Marry  at,  Eus- 
sell,  all  distinguished  in  tales  of  the  ocean,  have 
no  particular  rhetorical  merit.  And  Jack  Lon- 
don is  really  an  amateur  sailor.  Like  all  great 
English  writers,  Conrad  has  studied  with  assi- 
duity the  English  Bible.  There  are  not  many  of 
its  phrases  in  his  books,  but  its  influence  is  there. 

Conrad  is  the  heir  of  Stevenson.    Stevenson 


200  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

died  in  December,  1894,  and  the  very  next  year 
appeared  Conrad's  first  novel.  It  is  as  though 
Stevenson's  soul  had  migrated  to  the  new  man. 
How  Stevenson  would  have  enjoyed  reading 
Typhoon  or  The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus,  and 
what  wonderful  letters  he  would  have  written 
to  Mr.  Archer  and  Mr.  Colvin !  In  1895  Kipling 
was  in  the  zenith  of  his  glory,  and  his  tales  of 
the  East  were  inspiring  the  West.  Here  was 
Conrad's  opportunity.  Stevenson  and  Kipling, 
however,  were,  as  they  have  been  rightly  called, 
*^ observant  landsmen";  mere  reporters  of  the 
deep.  Joseph  Conrad  and  Pierre  Loti  are  sea- 
dogs  and  artists.  And  Conrad  is  more  sincere 
than  Loti;  he  has  the  Slavonic  calmness  and 
clearness  of  vision.  The  Frenchman  is  elabor- 
ate, ornamental;  indeed,  with  all  his  virtues, 
Pierre  Loti  is  a  poseur,  whether  he  is  talking 
about  the  sea  or  about  religion;  and  he  has  no 
reticence.  Conrad  is  more  silent,  more  grave, 
but  just  as  sensitive  as  the  picturesque  French- 
man. 

Conrad  has  never  been  a  popular  writer,  and 
a  large  number  of  intelligent  and  well-read  per- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  201 

sons  have  never  heard  his  name.  His  books 
have  not  synchronised  with  public  taste.  He 
began  his  literary  career  at  just  the  moment 
when  the  new  Eomanticism  was  fashionable, 
when  every  one  was  reading  The  Prisoner  of 
Zenda  and  A  Gentleman  of  France.  Now  there 
is  nothing  romantic  about  Conrad  except  his 
medium — the  sea.  At  present  he  is  writing  in 
the  flood-tide  of  the  biographical  novel,  some- 
thing utterly  foreign  to  his  manner  as  thus  far 
displayed.  He  is  the  psychologist  of  sailors; 
a  kind  of  union  of  Eichardson  and  Smollett; 
and  there  is  no  place  for  him  except  what  he  can 
make  for  himself.  Yet,  although  he  has  no 
public,  he  has  great  fame — ^his  case  being  analo- 
gous to  that  of  George  Meredith  and  Henry 
James.  No  living  writer  has  been  more  highly 
praised  by  men  whose  praise  is  worth  having. 
The  verdict  of  thoughtful  and  high-standard 
critics  is  practically  unanimous.  Many  cita- 
tions might  be  made,  most  of  which  would  seem 
extravagant;  we  have  space  only  for  one,  that 
written  by  John  Galsworthy  in  the  Fortnightly 
Review  in  1908.    Mentioning  the  list  of  Con- 


202  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

rad's  novels  from  1896  to  1908,  Mr.  Galsworthy 
remarked,  **The  writing  of  these  ten  books  is 
probably  the  only  writing  of  the  last  twelve 
years  that  will  enrich  the  English  language  to 
any  great  extent/'  He  calls  his  friend  **a 
seer,''  and  says  he  has  the  ** cosmic  spirit." 

Mr.  Conrad  himself  comments,  *^  Praise  and 
blame  to  my  mind  are  of  singularly  small  im- 
port, yet  one  cares  for  the  recognition  of  a  cer- 
tain ampleness  of  purpose."  If  Mr.  Conrad 
means  he  does  not  care  whether  he  is  praised  or 
blamed,  I  do  not  believe  him ;  but  all  he  actually 
says  here  is  that  he  wishes  to  be  taken  seriously. 
He  need  have  no  misgivings ;  his  most  thought- 
ful admirers  take  him  seriously,  and  the  great 
bulk  of  readers  take  him  so  seriously  that  they 
refuse  to  take  him  at  all.  One  critic  calls  the 
circle  of  his  readers  'inexplicably  small." 
There  is  nothing  inexplicable  about  it.  A  good 
many  years  ago  some  one  said  of  Browning  that 
he  had  done  less  to  conciliate  and  more  to  influ- 
ence the  public  than  any  other  man  of  his  time. 
Conrad  has  no  more  amenity  than  Browning. 
Stevenson  passed  joyously  from  incident  to  inci- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  203 

dent ;  Conrad  holds  one  incident  before  our  eyes, 
analysing  it,  reflecting  upon  it,  describing  it — 
like  a  lecturer  who  talks  about  something  that 
interests  him  rather  than  his  audience.  Con- 
rad is  over-careful  for  popular  taste ;  over-care- 
ful in  minuteness  and  accuracy  of  description, 
over-careful  in  analysis,  over-careful  in  the 
shades  of  his  conversations.  And  his  method 
of  construction,  shown  at  its  worst  in  Chance, 
is  irritating  to  all  readers,  and  to  some,  mad- 
dening. No,  the  wonder  is  not  that  Conrad's 
readers  are  so  few ;  the  wonder  is  that  they  are 
not  fewer.  That  they  are  steadily  increasing 
in  number  is  one  more  evidence  of  the  standards 
of  taste. 

Artists  who  write  to  please  themselves — that 
is,  to  satisfy  the  imperious  demands  of  their  con- 
science— are  more  happy,  I  must  believe,  than 
the  successful  caterers  to  the  public.  The  man 
who  writes  novels  to  please  the  public  is  like  an 
actor,  a  singer,  a  parlour  entertainer ;  his  hap- 
piness has  passed  beyond  his  control,  and  is  in 
the  keeping  of  others.  A  slight  diminution  in 
applause  casts  a  shadow  on  his  heart.    Some- 


204  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

times  we  hear  the  absurd  remark  that  actors 
must  be  tired  of  coming  before  the  curtain  at 
the  tenth  or  eleventh  recall.  Why,  that  is  the 
very  breath  of  life  to  them!  Indifference  or 
perfunctory  applause  destroys  their  happiness ; 
and  they  are  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  caprice 
of  the  public.  But  a  serious  artist,  who  does 
his  best  all  the  time,  even  with  scant  recognition, 
enjoys  the  pure  delight  of  creation;  lack  of  wide 
recognition  cannot  make  him  unhappy,  for  the 
sources  of  his  pleasure  are  elsewhere ;  and  when, 
at  the  end,  fame  comes  to  him,  as  it  is  bound  to 
come,  if  he  really  be  a  genius,  then  he  has  the 
pleasure  of  gaining  the  whole  world  and  saving 
his  own  soul. 

Admirable  writer  as  he  is,  Conrad  can  never 
rank  with  the  great  Slav  novelists,  Tolstoi,  Tur- 
genev,  Dostoevski.  For  not  only  does  he  lack 
the  universality  of  these  men,  his  style — ^proba- 
bly because  he  writes  in  an  alien  tongue — lacks 
the  transparent  quality  of  the  Slav  masters. 
The  style  of  Tolstoi  and  Turgenev  is  like  plate 
glass;  you  do  not  know  whether  it  is  there  or 
not,  you  are  so  interested  in  what  it  reveals,  so 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  205 

little  aware  of  the  medium  of  revelation.  Now 
Conrad's  well- wrought  style  is  highly  self-con- 
scious; it  is  never  a  happy  accident.  He  is  a 
most  deliberate  artist,  and  has  not  only  pon- 
dered deeply  about  his  art,  but  has  not  hesitated 
to  write  about  it.  He  is,  as  might  be  expected, 
an  intense  admirer  of  Henry  James,  an  author 
who  should  be  offered  only  to  foreign  students 
of  the  most  advanced  grades.  He  calls  Mr. 
James  ^*a  great  artist,"  and  agrees  with  him 
that  Fiction  is  nearer  truth  than  History.  His- 
tory takes  documents  as  a  base ;  fiction,  men  and 
women.  Both  men  insist  on  the  dignity  of  the 
novel.  The  artist  is  the  interpreter.  Some  one 
has  said  we  cannot  understand  Eomanised 
Britain  because  no  artists  survive  who  might 
have  interpreted  it  to  us;  Eome,  at  the  same 
period,  we  know  pretty  well. 

Mr.  Conrad,  in  speaking  of  what  is  perhaps 
his  masterpiece.  The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus 
(1897),  says,  **It  is  the  book  by  which,  not  as  a 
novelist  perhaps,  but  as  an  artist  striving  for 
the  utmost  sincerity  of  expression,  I  am  willing 
to  stand  or  fall.''    Even  at  that  early  stage  of 


206  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

his  career  lie  wrote  a  preface  to  his  book  (sup- 
pressed on  advice),  which  would  sound  preten- 
tious were  it  not  so  flamingly  sincere ;  and  which 
gives  his  artistic  creed,  a  statement  of  belief  to 
which  he  has  always  firmly  adhered.  Every 
reader  of  Conrad's  stories  should  study  this 
preface ;  and  one  passage  should  be  quoted  here. 
'^The  artist  appeals  to  that  part  of  our  being 
which  is  not  dependent  on  wisdom ;  to  that  in  us 
which  is  a  gift  and  not  an  acquisition — and, 
therefore,  more  permanently  enduring.  He 
speaks  to  our  capacity  for  delight  and  wonder, 
to  the  sense  of  mystery  surrounding  our  lives : 
to  our  sense  of  pity,  and  beauty,  and  pain:  to 
the  latent  feeling  of  fellowship  with  all  creation 
— and  to  the  subtle  but  invincible  conviction  of 
solidarity  that  knits  together  the  loneliness  of 
innumerable  hearts  to  the  solidarity  in  dreams, 
in  joy,  in  sorrow,  in  aspirations,  in  illusions,  in 
hope,  in  fear,  which  binds  men  to  each  other, 
which  binds  together  all  humanity — the  dead  to 
the  living  and  the  living  to  the  unborn." 

This  preface  might  have  been  written  by 
Fielding  to  Tom  Jones,  except  for  one  phrase, 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  207 

*'the  sense  of  mystery  surrounding  our  lives''; 
for  that  sense  of  mystery  does  not  appear  in 
eighteenth  century  fiction,  and  its  total  absence 
from  Tom  Jones  prevents  that  novel  from  being 
the  best  novel  in  the  English  language.  The 
novel  has  advanced  since  1749. 

Conrad  stands  alone  in  modern  fiction,  be- 
longing to  no  school,  and  under  the  influence  of 
no  group.  He  has  a  praiseworthy  impatience 
with  dogmas  like  Eealism,  Sentimentalism, 
Naturalism,  Eomanticism,  saying,  *  ^Liberty  of 
the  imagination  is  the  most  precious  possession 
of  a  novelist."  He  insists,  too,  that  no  matter 
how  objective  a  novelist  may  be,  he  never  de- 
scribes the  world — he  describes  his  own  world, 
the  world  as  he  sees  it.  And  in  order  to  de- 
scribe even  this  subjective  world,  he  must  rid 
himself  not  only  of  artistic  dogmas,  but  philo- 
sophical ones,  like  pessimism  and  optimism. 
Optimism  may  seem  jauntily  shallow,  but  pes- 
simism, says  Mr.  Conrad,  is  intellectual  arro- 
gance. Consistent  pessimists  are  certainly,  I 
think,  rarer  than  consistent  optimists.  Mr. 
Conrad  says  that  every  attempt  to  explain  this 


208  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

universe  ethically  is  a  failure;  but,  to  use  his 
phrase,  it  is  a  *^ spectacular''  universe,  full  of 
wonder,  mystery,  delight — above  all,  interest- 
ing. Thus  those  realists  who  attempt  to  repre- 
sent life  as  dully  monotonous  would  seem  to  be 
barred  by  Conrad  from  the  ranks  of  true  novel- 
ists. For  my  part,  however  dull  life  at  times 
may  be,  I  have  never  found  life,  even  in  its  grey- 
est moments,  so  dull  as  many  books  that  profess 
to  describe  it. 

Those  that  have  not  yet  surrendered  to  Con- 
rad, and  many  there  be  that  are  offended  in 
him, — and  also  those  who  have  not  read  him  at 
all,  should  read  first,  Typhoon  and  then  The 
Nigger  of  the  Narcissus,  Conrad's  stories  of 
the  East  sound  to  me — who  have  never  been 
there,  and  am  quite  willing  to  see  it  through  bet- 
ter eyes  than  my  own — ^more  truthful  than  Kip- 
ling's. The  latter  is  a  born  exaggerator,  inca- 
pable of  moderation — witness  his  remarks  in  the 
present  war — Conrad  is  more  cool,  more  aloof. 
Like  his  famous  Captain  in  Typhoon,  Conrad 
describes  fearful  storms  in  nature  and  frightful 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  209 

passions  in  man,  with  an  extraordinary  poise — 
the  calm  of  the  observant  artist. 

The  literature  of  all  nations  is  filled  with  de- 
scriptions of  the  wrath  of  the  ocean ;  thousands 
of  writers  have  done  their  best  to  reproduce  in 
the  mind  of  the  reader  the  sublime  and  terrible 
spectacle.  But  I  do  not  think  I  have  read  any- 
where a  more  real  account  than  in  Typhoon;  one 
feels  engulfed,  like  the  two  men  on  the  bridge. 
Yet  the  originality  and  power  of  this  wonderful 
story  do  not  lie  mainly  in  the  pictures  of  the 
storm;  the  true  interest  is  in  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  hideous  forces  of  nature  at  their 
worst,  and  the  skill  of  one  man.  Captain  Mac- 
Whirr  is  the  only  person  who  can  beat  the  sea. 
He  conquers  the  ocean,  because  he  has  no  more 
imagination  than  the  ocean,  really  no  more  sen- 
tient life  than  the  ocean.  Nature  is  ruthless, 
unconscious,  unaware;  but  so  is  Captain  Mac- 
Whirr.  And  in  this  Captain,  nature  meets  her 
master,  because  joined  with  equal  unconscious- 
ness is  the  power  of  intention ;  definite  purpose. 
He  is  there  to  save  his  ship,  and  he  intends  to 


210  THE  ADVANCE  OP 

save  it.  His  quelling  the  riot  on  board  with  the 
same  inflexible  discipline  that  he  would  have  ob- 
served on  a  calm  night  illustrates  his  character. 
Conrad  has  shown  us  clearly  what  manner  of 
man  he  is  in  the  extraordinary  incident  of  the 
change  of  flags ;  and  now  in  the  tempest  his  very 
inertia  wears  out  the  patience  of  the  storm. 
Had  he  possessed  one  spark  of  self -conscious- 
ness, one  flash  of  imagination,  his  ship  would 
have  been  lost.  He  has  the  invincible  courage 
that  goes  with  essentially  stupid  minds ;  he  has 
no  fear  because  the  possibility  of  choice  does 
not  even  occur  to  him.  Captain  MacWhirr  is 
as  stupid  as  Destiny  itself;  and  in  this  adven- 
ture seems  to  defeat  Destiny. 

In  The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus,  and  if  I 
could  have  only  one  of  Conrad's  books,  I  would 
take  this  one,  Conrad  shows  his  profound  sym- 
pathy with  the  children  of  the  forecastle.  I 
wonder  if  he  exhibited  as  much  sympathy  with 
them  when  he  was  in  active  command  as  he  does 
in  the  pages  of  this  book?  This  is  a  real  ** sea- 
story,"  with  appropriate  incidents,  but  differ- 
entiated from  its  class  by  profound  and  subtle 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  211 

psychological  analysis.  To  see  what  mere 
thoughtfulness  has  done  to  the  art  of  fiction,  it 
is  instructive  to  compare  Cooper's  Long  Tom 
Coffin  in  The  Pilot  with  old  Singleton  in  this 
narrative.  It  is  the  difference  between  child- 
hood and  maturity.  Sea-fiction  has  *' grown 
up/'  has  become  deeply  reflective  as  well  as  de- 
scriptive, is  taking  itself  earnestly.  Conrad 
would  not  write  like  Cooper  if  he  could;  and 
Cooper  could  not  have  written  like  Conrad,  be- 
cause between  the  two  came  the  whole  Victo- 
rian age  of  serious  thought.  This  is  a  tale  of  the 
sea,  written  by  one  who  loved  it,  who  loved  it 
with  exaggerated  intensity  in  the  safe  glow  of 
reminiscence;  but  it  is  written  with  soberness 
of  mind,  with  the  intent  to  reveal  the  very  heart 
of  human  mystery. 

Although  Conrad  denounces  pessimism,  most 
of  his  stories  are  deeply  tragic,  are  full  of  the 
sickness  of  heart  that  comes  from  deferred 
hopes,  full  of  frustration  and  despair.  He  ex- 
cels particularly  in  the  depiction  of  remorse. 
Prometheus  was  comfortable  compared  to  these 
men  and  women  of  Conrad,  whose  hearts  are 


212  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

torn  by  the  vulture  of  memory.  His  tragedies 
usually  happen  in  far-off  places,  India  or  Africa 
— or  they  happen  to  obscure  and  unimportant 
people  in  big  western  cities.  His  first  book, 
Almayer's  Folly,  is  an  illustration  of  the  first, 
The  Secret  Agent  of  the  second.  No  imagina- 
tive reader  can  possibly  forget  the  awful  scene 
toward  the  close  of  Almayer,  where  the  man 
carefully  obliterates  the  traces  of  the  girPs  foot- 
steps. 

Conrad's  women  are  highly  interesting,  al- 
though unlike  any  women  I  have  ever  met. 
They  have  an  endless  capacity  for  suffering  with 
no  power  of  articulation.  Most  women  that  I 
have  known  suffer  less  and  talk  more.  There 
is  something  hideous  in  the  dumb  pain  of  these 
creatures.  They  open  not  their  mouths.  In 
the  story  of  Falk,  the  awful  remorse  of  the  man 
who  has  eaten  a  human  body  is  confronted  with 
the  stolid  silent  suffering  of  the  passionate 
woman  who  loves  him.  In  The  Secret  Agent, 
the  woman  is  in  hell  all  the  time;  but  no  one 
can  get  a  word  out  of  her.  In  Chance,  it  is 
plain  that  the  young  girl  is  not  happy;  yet  every 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  213 

attempt  to  elicit  from  lier  any  speech  that  shall 
give  a  key  to  her  pain  so  that  it  can  be  relieved, 
is  fruitless ;  all  that  a  friend  can  do  is  to  adopt 
a  policy  of  watchful  waiting,  successful  in  this 
instance  as  it  catches  the  young  lady  in  the  quiet 
but  determined  effort  at  suicide.  These  pas- 
sive, undemonstrative,  silent  women  have  a 
reticence  that  is  maddening;  one  feels  that  if 
they  were  physically  ill,  the  greatest  diagnos- 
tician in  the  world  could  make  nothing  of  them ; 
would  have  to  resort  to  the  wildest  guesses. 
We  all  of  us  know  persons  who  are  undemon- 
strative, though  they  are  sufficiently  rare  to 
seem  eccentric ;  but  where  has  Conrad  met  these 
women  who  are  totally  unresponsive  ?  who  greet 
small-talk,  threats,  curses,  honest  enquiry,  and 
affectionate  solicitude  with  nothing  but  stead- 
fast eyes,  in  which  the  fires  of  the  pit  are 
smouldering?  I  had  rather  dwell  on  the  house- 
top with  a  contentious  woman  in  a  continual 
dropping  of  water  than  with  one  of  these  crea- 
tures who  look  so  significant  and  never  by  any 
chance  say  anything. 
Conrad  himself  as  a  novelist  is  taciturn,  ex- 


214  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

ceedingly  chary  of  comment.  Compare  him 
with  a  garrulous  artist  like  Thackeray,  who  chat- 
ters at  his  helpless  reader  with  the  fluency  of 
a  barber !  Conrad  is  unlike  the  English  novel- 
ists in  his  silent  gravity,  and  he  is  totally  un- 
like the  Germans  in  his  brevity  and  lack  of  sen- 
timent. He  points  out  to  us  the  wonder  of  the 
sea,  but  he  indulges  in  no  rhapsodies  thereupon ; 
he  shows  us  the  variety  of  human  nature  in  one 
forecastle,  with  no  moralising  and  no  gush — 
merely  an  occasional  query,  as,  why  do  those 
sailors  read  only  Bulwer-Lytton! 

Conrad  is  not  always  easy  reading;  partly 
because  of  his  solidity  of  phrase,  partly  because 
of  his  peculiar  method,  illustrated  at  its  ex- 
treme in  Chance.  He  wishes  to  get  the  vital 
effect  of  the  first  person  talking  without  making 
the  chief  character  speak.  Thus  we  have  the  in- 
terposition of  Marlow,  who  is  a  good  deal  of  a 
bore.  The  reader  is  four  removes  from  Con- 
rad's mind.  We  get  at  the  characters  and  the 
events  of  the  story  through  what  some  one  has 
said  to  some  one  else,  who  is  a  friend  of  Mar- 
low's,  who  in  turn  reports  to  us.    This  gives 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  215 

Conrad  full  opportunity  to  show  his  characters 
in  all  kinds  of  reflected  lights,  and  from  all  man- 
ner of  angles;  but  it  is  sometimes  perplexing. 
The  fact  is  that  while  Dickens  is  a  refracting 
telescope,  Conrad  is  a  reflector.  Dickens  turns 
the  lens  of  his  powerful  imagination  directly  on 
individuals  like  Micawber  or  Dick  Swiveller,  and 
with  their  qualities  magnified,  and  brought  close 
to  the  reader,  we  see  them  in  a  strong  light  and 
they  become  hugely  interesting.  Conrad  does 
not  have  us  look  directly  at  the  object,  but  rather 
at  a  mirror  in  which  the  object  is  reflected. 
This  mirror  may  be  simply  the  effect  produced 
on  some  other  person  or  persons  by  the  leading 
character,  or  it  may  be  simply  the  clear  surface 
of  Marlow's  mind.  At  all  events  we  regard  the 
character  in  its  reflected  image,  rather  than  in 
a  direct  gaze. 

Although  no  novelist  preaches  less,  Conrad's  ^ 
books  are  based  on  the  axiom  of  the  moral  law. 
Ethically,  his  novels  are  sound.    Perhaps  the 
most  impressive  from  the  moral  point  of  view  ' 
is  the  long  story.  Under  Western  Eyes,  where 
the  student,  who  had  everything  to  lose  and 


216  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

nothing  to  gain  by  confession,  suffered  such  in- 
tolerably acute  agony  of  conscience  (sharpened 
by  love)  that  he  could  retain  the  truth  not  an- 
other moment;  just  as  Easkolnikov,  in  Crime 
and  Punishment,  a  book  which  this  one  in  cer- 
tain features  resembles,  had  to  give  himself  up 
to  the  police. 

One  reason  why  Conrad's  characters  with  all 
the  infinite  detail  we  have  of  them  do  not  seem 
so  real  as  the  persons  in  Jane  Austen,  is  be- 
cause the  method  of  portraiture  is  not  photo- 
graphic. Each  one  of  Jane  Austen's  men  and 
women  is  an  accurate  reproduction.  Conrad's 
people  are  made  in  the  fusion  of  memory  and 
thought.  They  are  not  given  to  the  reader  un- 
til the  novelist  has  thought  about  them  intensely. 
He  sees  them  clearly  but  loves  to  speculate  about 
them. 

Two  of  his  stories  are  quite  different  from 
the  others.  After  all  his  studies  of  despair,  it 
is  interesting  to  read  his  charming,  humorous, 
sympathetic  and  altogether  delightful  tale,  The 
Point  of  Honour.  It  is  a  kind  of  allegory  of  the 
struggle  between  good  and  evil,  with  the  triumph 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  217 

of  good.  For  the  other  exception  I  can  find  in 
my  mind  little  favourable  comment.  The  story 
Victory  reads  as  though  it  were  intended  to  gain 
for  its  author  a  wider  audience,  as  though  he 
had  tried  to  write  in  a  *  'popular ' '  manner.  De- 
spite many  fine  passages  of  description,  it  is 
poor  stuff,  and  its  author  should  be  ashamed  of 
Mr.  Jones,  who  belongs  to  cheap  melodrama. 
It  is  to  me  inconceivable  that  Conrad  should 
deliberately  lower  his  ideal,  or  hoist  a  white  flag 
to  the  hostile  majority.  If  that  were  true,  Vic- 
tory  would  be  a  defeat.  I  regard  it  simply  as 
one  of  those  lapses  of  which  nearly  all  great 
writers  have  shown  themselves  capable. 

John  Galsworthy  is  a  notable  figure  in  con- 
temporary literature,  having  enjoyed  something 
like  real  fame  for  about  ten  years.  He  is  a 
novelist  and  a  dramatist  of  distinction ;  a  maker 
of  respectable  verse ;  above  all,  a  satirist.  He 
looks  on  the  world  with  disapproval,  and  on 
England  with  scorn ;  the  latter  attitude  has  of 
course  been  modified  by  the  war.  I  used  to  won- 
der what  all  these  writers  who  have  used  the 
great  middle-class  of  England  as  the  butt  of 


218  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

their  contempt  and  ridicule  would  do  in  the 
event  of  a  national  crisis;  for  then  the  only 
agency  that  could  save  England  would  be  this 
same  despised  middle-class.  Well,  they  have 
all  become  emotional — as  emotional  as  pious  dis- 
senters— and  solemnly  *' patriotic,"  except 
Bernard  Shaw.  To  him  the  British  are  as 
ridiculous  and  contemptible  in  the  hour  of  dan- 
ger as  they  were  in  the  days  of  safety. 

His  first  important  book  was  calledThe  Island 
Pharisees,  which  might  stand  as  the  title  of  his 
complete  works.  Satire  is  here  more  prepon- 
derant than  art,  and  the  novel  falls  by  its  weight. 
The  publication  of  this  book  seemed  to  cleanse 
his  bosom  of  much  perilous  stuff,  for  it  was  fol- 
lowed in  two  years  by  his  masterpiece,  The  Man 
of  Property,  one  of  the  best  English  novels  of 
the  twentieth  century.  There  is  a-plenty  of  sa- 
tire, but  the  burlesques  of  the  former  book  have 
become  real  portraits.  That  family  of  brothers 
is  a  triumph — **  where  do  you  get  your  wine,  and 
what  do  you  pay  for  it?"  Yet  even  in  this  fine 
work  occurs  the  obsession  of  Mr.  Galsworthy,  a 
marriage  without  love,  where  the  husband  shows 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  •  219 

intolerable  cruelty  in  insisting  on  embracing  his 
wife,  and  hideous  selfishness  in  objecting  to  her 
gratifying  her  passions  with  another  man.  The 
husband  is  certainly  an  offensive  person,  and  in 
the  Eestoration  Drama  would  have  received  ap- 
propriate frontal  decorations ;  but  the  unpreju- 
diced observer  may  enquire.  If  the  lady  did 
not  and  could  not  love  this  man,  why  did  she 
marry  him  1  When  women  marry,  some  of  them 
anyhow  are  old  enough  to  know  better ;  and  the 
real  test  of  character  is  not  the  making  of  an 
unwise  marriage,  but  the  behaviour  of  a  person 
after  the  unwise  marriage  is  made.  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy returns  to  this  theme  more  than  once, 
and  so  overstates  it  in  The  Fugitive  as  to  de- 
prive the  play  of  any  hitting  power.  For  it  is 
not  only  the  law  of  marriage  he  would  have  us 
repeal,  it  is  the  law  of  causation. 

Mr.  Galsworthy  insists  that  he  is  not  a  par- 
tisan, but  a  chronicler;  he  is  certainly  acute, 
thoroughly  honest  in  purpose,  and  essentially 
noble.  I  like  him  best  where  he  lives  closest  to 
his  creed,  as  in  the  account  of  the  Forsyte  fam- 
ily in  The  Man  of  Property,  in  the  play  Strife, 


220  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

and  in  the  most  charming  of  all  his  novels,  The 
Patrician.  But  he  has  an  actively  moral,  as 
well  as  an  artistic,  conscience ;  his  temperament 
is  plainly  radical,  and  his  sympathies  are  al- 
ways with  those  who  are  opposed  to  the  present 
social  organisation.  The  word  Eespectability 
makes  him  see  red.  No  German  has  said  worse 
things  of  England's  hypocrisy  than  some  of  her 
own  present-day  novelists. 

The  mnch-praised  Country  House  I  found 
dull,  and  the  only  beneficial  effect  I  obtained 
from  its  perusal  was  deep  and  refreshing  sleep. 
The  Dark  Flower  I  found  worse  than  dull ;  it  is 
a  blot  in  the  fair  'scutcheon  of  its  author.  In  his 
latest  novel.  The  Freelands,  a  wise  woman  ob- 
jects to  visiting  her  sister-in-law  because  at  her 
house  she  feels  herself  ^^all  body'' ;  in  The  Darh 
Flower,  one  has  the  same  sensation.  The  char- 
acters are  all  body,  and  no  soul.  Every  writer 
of  noble  mind — and  Mr.  Galsworthy  surely  be- 
longs to  that  class — ^must  desire  not  merely 
many  readers,  but  the  best  readers,  the  most 
select,  the  most  intelligent,  the  most  critical. 
He  wishes  to  have  his  works  read  primarily  by 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  221 

those  who  are  able  to  understand  them.  Now 
the  penalty  for  emphasising  instinct  rather  than 
thought,  for  analysing  states  of  physical  sensa- 
tion rather  than  states  of  mind,  is  the  lowering 
of  one's  clientele.  For  example,  a  genius  like 
Guy  de  Maupassant  ought  to  be  read  only  by 
the  most  intelligent  men  and  women;  whereas, 
thanks  to  his  sex-obsession,  the  majority  of  his 
readers  to-day  all  over  the  world  are  low- 
browed, morbid  adolescents  who  find  in  him  ex- 
actly what  they  are  looking  for.  This  will  go 
on  from  generation  to  generation:  instead  of  be- 
ing read  with  mental  delight,  he  will  be  read  with 
a  leer. 

Despite  all  the  foolish  praise  heaped  upon 
Theophile  Gautier,  his  most  infamous  novel 
holds  its  circulation  through  pornography ;  Mr. 
Booth  Tarkington  is  quite  right  when  he  says 
that  were  it  not  for  this  element,  it  would  not 
have  twenty  readers  a  year. 

Out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth 
speaketh.  "We  expect  base  language  from  base 
minds.  Therefore  such  a  book  as  The  Dark 
Flower  coming  from  Mr.  Galsworthy,  is  not  only 


222  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

in  itself  distressing ;  it  is  a  distressing  surprise. 
He  writes  there  as  many  men  in  the  forties — 
dangerous  years — secretly  think;  they  are  re- 
gretting the  lost  opportunities  of  their  physical 
youth,  regretting,  not  their  sins,  but  old  vetoes 
of  conscience.  Such  a  work  as  The  Dark  Flower 
has  an  unpleasantness  that  a  writer  of  lower 
grade  could  not  have  produced ;  lilies  that  fester 
smell  far  worse  than  weeds. 

The  first  half  of  The  Freelands  (1915)  is 
wholly  delightful;  it  has  all  the  charm  of  The 
Patrician,  with  the  added  effect  of  even  maturer 
art.  In  the  burning  of  the  rick  the  conflagration 
consumes  not  merely  grass  of  the  field,  but  all 
the  natural  beauty  of  the  story ;  which  straight- 
way becomes  tiresome  and  pedantic.  The  boy 
is  a  prig,  and  we  can  only  hope  that  Nedda  will 
remain  as  blind  to  his  inherent  dulness  after 
marriage  as  she  is  before.  The  great  redeeming 
feature  of  this  novel  is  the  character  of  Granny 
Freeland.  She  is  as  real  as  life  itself;  no  one 
who  pays  any  attention  to  her  can  help  loving 
her.  The  unselfishness,  resignation,  tenderness, 
and  gentleness  that  long  years  have  taught  her 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  223 

contrast  sharply  with  the  egotistic  dogmatic 
assurance  of  her  grandson.  For,  as  Browning 
says,  the  young  man  struts  along  as  though  he 
owned  the  world;  the  old  man  walks  the  pave- 
ment quietly,  asking  for  nothing,  merely  hoping 
that  nobody  will  kill  him.  Her  delightful  little 
remedies  are  ironically  shown  up  by  the  author ; 
but  after  all,  they  are  real  remedies  for  real 
(and  curable)  troubles. 

A  German  who  should  read  this  book  might 
easily  be  pardoned  for  believing  that  the  best 
thing  that  could  happen  to  Great  Britain  would 
be  its  conquest  by  Germany. 

J.  M.  Barrie,  the  greatest,  most  profound, 
most  original  British  dramatist  of  our  time,  is 
so  deservedly  eminent  in  that  field  that  we  are 
almost  forgetting  he  belongs  also  in  the  history 
of  the  English  novel.  To  be  sure,  he  has  writ- 
ten only  one  masterpiece.  Sentimental  Tommy, 
and  he  followed  that  with  an  inept  sequel. 
Tommy  and  Grizzel,  In  1892  Stevenson  wrote 
to  him,  '^I  am  proud  to  think  you  are  a  Scotch- 
man. ...  I  am  a  capable  artist;  but  it  begins 
to  look  to  me  as  if  you  were  a  man  of  genius." 


224  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

A  few  months  before  his  death,  informed  that 
he  was  the  boy-model  for  Sentimental  Tommy, 
he  wrote,  ^*My  dear  Barrie,  I  am  a  little  in  the 
dark  about  this  new  work  of  yours :  what  is  to 
become  of  me  afterwards?  You  say  carefully 
— ^methought  anxiously — that  I  was  no  longer 
me  when  I  grew  up?  I  cannot  bear  this  sus- 
pense: what  is  it?  It's  no  forgery?  and  am  I 
hangitf'^ 

The  boy  in  Sentimental  Tommy  is  just  as 
truly  the  eternal  boy  as  is  Tom  Sawyer ;  omit  his 
love  for  the  specific  word,  he  has  the  charm,  the 
imitativeness,  the  histrionic  vein,  the  vanity, 
the  laziness,  the  meanness,  the  colossal  selfish- 
ness of  all  small  boys.  The  Eussians  tell  us 
not  to  blame  the  mirror  if  the  face  looks  ugly. 
No  honest  man  can  read  Sentimental  Tommy 
without  seeing  himself  reflected,  minus  the  gen- 
ius for  composition.  It  is  one  of  the  most  bril- 
liant and  most  unpleasant  works  of  our  time; 
unpleasant  because  it  does  for  every  man  what 
Hamlet  did  for  his  mother — it  tells  us  what  we 
really  are.  We  cannot  help  being  delighted  with 
its  humour— *' don't  say  *methinks'  so  often" 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  225 

— but  it  has  caused  much  melancholy  and  let  us 
hope  beneficial  heart-searching. 

The  sequel,  Tommy  and  Grizzel,  was  not 
needed.  It  is  as  though  Mr.  Barrie  were  afraid 
we  should  not  see  the  moral,  should  not  see  our 
danger,  should  not  see  that  the  destination 
whither  selfishness  leads  is  tragic  both  for  the 
protagonist  and  his  associates;  he  therefore, 
throwing  aside  subtlety,  roared  a  moral  in  our 
ears,  pointing  to  the  gibbet  like  any  Hogarth. 
It  was  bad  enough,  in  all  conscience,  to  have 
Tess  hanged,  but  to  have  Tommy  hanged  is  like 
a  very  bad  joke  that  leaves  the  whole  company 
in  an  embarrassed  silence. 

To  die  for  faction  is  a  common  evil, 

But  to  be  hanged  for  nonsense  is  the  devil. 

In  the  year  1904  Charlotte  Bronte  revisited 
the  glimpses  of  the  moon,  wrote  a  strange  novel 
called  The  Divine  Fire  and  returned  to  the  Ely- 
sian  Fields.  She  signed  the  work  by  the  then 
unfamiliar  name  of  May  Sinclair;  and  although 
the  British  audience  for  whom  it  was  intended 
paid  no  attention  to  it,  many  thousands  of  Amer- 


226  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

icans  read  it  with  such  enthusiasm  that  echoes 
were  aroused  on  the  other  side,  and  the  English 
are  now  proud  to  claim  what  is  theirs.  In  this 
particular  literary  conflagration,  the  divine  fire 
was  mingled  with  much  smoke ;  hut  the  flashes 
in  the  darkness  were  veritable  flames,  and  May- 
Sinclair  is  to-day  the  foremost  living  writer 
among  English-speaking  women.  She  has  a 
hectic,  feverish,  high-tension  manner  that  is  not 
really  unhealthy;  it  is  more  the  overflowing  of 
pent-up  passion.  For  none  of  her  books  is  made 
by  the  scraping  together  of  what  lies  in  the 
dusty  corners  of  the  mind;  and  no  one  of  her 
books  is  made  to  order;  they  are  more  like  es- 
caping steam,  that  cannot  be  repressed  another 
instant.  They  are  the  outcome,  in  other  words, 
of  fiercely  held  convictions.  If  she  could  not 
write,  she  would  burst. 

This  white-hot  intensity  is  just  as  character- 
istic of  The  Helpmate,  The  Judgment  of  Eve, 
The  Three  Sisters,  The  Belfry,  as  it  is  of  The 
Divine  Fire.  The  Helpmate  and  The  Judgment 
of  Eve  represent  exactly  opposite  points  of 
view,  for  which,  however,  these  two  books  afford 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  227 

excellent  illustrations.  It  is  amusing  to  remem- 
ber that  when  the  former  appeared  in  the  Atlan- 
tic Monthly,  there  was  a  great  fluttering  in  the 
Boston  dovecotes;  and  if  I  remember  rightly, 
some  kind  of  editorial  apology  was  demanded 
and  given;  it  seemed  that  the  first  chapter  was 
perused  in  the  absence  of  the  Head,  and  that, 
with  the  distinguished  name  of  the  author,  was 
the  warrant  to  advance  at  full  speed.  But 
one  steps  on  a  firecracker  in  the  very  first  chap- 
ter! 

Miss  Sinclair  is  a  looker-on  at  the  game  of 
marriage,  which  gives  her  the  vantage-ground 
for  observing  the  mistakes  of  both  players. 
The  Helpmate  castigates  the  woman,  and  The 
Judgment  of  Eve  lashes  the  man.  The  whip  in 
each  case  descends  on  the  guilty  party,  although 
women  are  sure  to  believe  The  Helpmate  most 
needed,  while  men  will  own  to  the  necessity  of 
The  Judgment  of  Eve,  "We  love  and  applaud 
all  literary  and  oratorical  castigation.  No 
man  can  read  about  the  peevish  importunity  of 
the  tuppenny  husband  over  his  outing  suit,  with- 
out feeling  as  David  did  when  Nathan  pushed 


228  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

the  application  home.  I  am  sorry  that  The 
Judgment  of  Eve  has  not  had  a  wider  circula- 
tion. It  is  exactly  the  hook  which  every  reader 
will  feel  that  his  neighbours  ought  to  read. 

In  The  Three  Sisters,  Miss  Sinclair  ap- 
proaches perihelion.  This  is  the  best  book  she 
has  written,  wrought  with  an  art  that  has  be- 
come thoroughly  mature.  The  influence  of  the 
three  Bronte  sisters  is  more  real  than  apparent ; 
the  spirit  of  the  book  shows  the  same  unsatis- 
fied thirst  for  life,  the  same  frustration  of  pas- 
sion, that  one  feels  in  Jane  Eyre  and  in  Wuther- 
ing  Heights.  Woman's  inhumanity  to  woman 
is  the  basis  of  the  plot ;  and  although  the  scene 
is  laid  in  a  country  parsonage,  although  the 
rector  and  his  three  daughters  are  all  tech- 
nically virtuous,  the  divine  fire  has  become 
sulphurous;  it  is  really  the  flame  of  hell.  I 
know  of  no  solution  for  the  problem  presented 
by  the  novelist  except  polygamy. 

No  man  by  any  possiblity  could  ever  have 
drawn  that  oldest  sister;  she  is  a  '* designing 
creature,"  presented  with  subtle  art.  This  is 
a  real  novel,  an  important  novel;  it  has  a  real 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  229 

story,  startlingly  real  characters,  has  no  thesis, 
and  means  nothing  except  as  a  significant  rep- 
resentation of  life. 

The  most  steadily  entertaining  novel  that 
Miss  Sinclair  has  written  is  The  Belfry,  The 
last  scenes  are  a  concession  to  the  dominating 
interest  of  the  Great  War,  but  they  were  neces- 
sary to  bring  out  the  character  of  the  strange 
hero.  This  book  again  is  filled  with  real  peo- 
ple, and  British  ^* respectability"  is  treated,  not 
with  the  scorn  of  Galsworthy,  Bennett,  and 
Wells,  but  with  all  a  woman's  patience  for  the 
stupidity  and  narrowness  of  humanity.  Her 
*' respectable '*  folk  here  are  irritating  at  times, 
but  they  are  charming  too. 

Miss  Sinclair  has  made  astonishing  progress 
in  literary  art  since  the  composition  of  The 
Divine  Fire;  there  is  no  comparison  at  all  be- 
tween that  book  and  The  Belfry,  No  two  of 
her  books  are  alike ;  she  is  more  than  versatile : 
she  has  something  of  the  range  of  humanity  it- 
self. What  an  extraordinary  power  of  con- 
trast is  shown  in  the  clergyman  of  The  Three 
Sisters  if  you  compare  him  with  the  Canter- 


230  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

bury  cleric  in  The  Belfry!  The  two  men,  how- 
ever, are  no  more  unlike  than  the  two  books  they 
adorn.  As  Miss  Sinclair  grows  older,  her  eyes 
become  more  and  more  achromatic:  in  The 
Divine  Fire,  she  saw  life  through  all  kinds  of 
fantastic  colours ;  now  she  sees  the  world  as  it 
really  is.  And  how  infinitely  more  interesting 
the  actual  world  is  than  any  of  our  illusions 
about  it ! 

Miss  Mary  Patricia  "Willcocks,  of  Devonshire, 
is  not  nearly  so  well  known  as  she  deserves  to 
be.  For  many  years  a  school-teacher,  the 
stream  of  her  activity  turned  in  1905  to  fiction, 
and  in  1907  she  wrote  a  novel  of  great  power 
and  charm,  The  Wingless  Victory,  The  manu- 
script completely  captured  the  heart  of  that 
seasoned  publisher,  John  Lane ;  nor  do  I  think 
any  intelligent  person  could  read  this  book 
without  feeling  that  the  author  belongs  to  litera- 
ture. The  most  notable  feature  of  her  work  is 
its  deep  thoughtfulness,  its  active  cerebration, 
as  different  from  the  reflected  culture  of  Mrs. 
Ward  as  could  well  be  imagined.  She  repeated 
her  success  in  1908  with  A  Man  of  Genius,  an- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  231 

other  skilful  diagnosis  of  human  sickness. 
Then,  unfortunately,  her  later  novels.  The  Way 
Up,  and  Wings  of  Desire,  while  written  with 
real  distinction,  are  too  strongly  flavoured  with 
the  author's  ^^ opinions.''  The  fact  that  she  is 
a  feminist  and  naturally  radical,  ought  not  in 
the  least  to  have  injured  her  literary  work;  for 
she  probably  held  the  same  convictions  when 
she  wrote  the  Wingless  Victory.  No,  she  has 
allowed  her  ** views"  to  trespass  in  the  pleasant 
pastures  of  her  art,  where  they  seem  at  any  rate 
out  of  place. 

But  when  I  remember  who  she  is,  what  she 
has  accomplished,  and  that  she  lives  in  Devon, 
I  have  high  hopes. 


CHAPTEB  IX 

TWENTIETH   CENTUEY  BRITISH   NOVELISTS 

Contemporary  Novelists  in  Great  Britain — Samuel  Butler 
— Bernard  Shaw — Eden  Phillpotts — George  Moore  and  the 
Experimental  Novel— H.  G.  Wells— W.  J.  Locke— Alfred 
OUivant— Mrs.  W.  K.  Clifford— Mary  Cholmondeley— W. 
B.  Maxwell — Leonard  Merrick — H.  H.  Bashford— A.  S.  M. 
Hutchinson — St.  John  Ervine. 

I  AM  reminded  of  old  Vigneron's  remark  about 
Meyerbeer ;  for  Samuel  Butler  died  without  my 
noticing  it;  I  didn't  even  know  he  was  sick. 
Shortly  after  his  cremated  ashes  had  been  scat- 
tered to  the  winds  of  heaven,  a  learned  lady 
asked  me  if  I  knew  anything  about  Samuel  But- 
ler. Although  I  have  ceased  to  be  shocked  at 
anything  the  azure-footed  say  or  do,  I  did  feel 
a  penumbra  of  chagrin,  for  I  earn  my  bread  by 
teaching  English  Literature.  I  proceeded  to 
emit  a  few  platitudes  about  Hudibras,  when  I 
was  sharply  interrupted,  and  informed  that  the 
subject  for  discussion  was  the  great  Samuel 
Butler,  the  Samuel  Butler,  **the  greatest  novel- 

232 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  233 

est  of  the  nineteenth  century.''  This  is  a  title 
that  few  writers  of  modern  fiction  have  escaped, 
and  I  breathed  easier.  **  Ignorance,  Madam, 
pure  ignorance,'' — ^how  often  Johnson  has 
helped  us  I 

Now  I  am  grateful  to  my  fair  tutor,  for  while 
the  name  of  the  Erewhon  philosopher  must 
eventually  have  penetrated  even  into  academic 
circles,  I  might  have  remained  a  few  months 
longer  in  the  outer  darkness,  and  thus  have 
postponed  my  acquaintance  with  The  Way  of 
All  Flesh.  Butler  spent  a  good  many  years 
writing  this  extraordinary  book,  and  finished 
it  a  good  many  years  ago,  but  in  1902,  on  his 
deathbed,  gave  for  the  first  time,  permission  to 
have  it  printed,  characteristically  reversing  the 
conventional  deathbed  repentance  and  confes- 
sion. He,  who  had  abandoned  all  faith  except 
in  his  own  infallibility,  ardently  believed  in  his 
posthumous  fame,  which  has  become  a  reality. 
Its  slow  growth  seems  to  indicate  permanence. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  two  Samuel  But- 
lers— the  seventeenth  century  poet  and  the  nine- 
teenth century  novelist — should  have  held  pre- 


234  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

cisely  the  same  attitude  toward  religious  prig- 
gery.  Neither  could  endure  the  organised 
and  dominant  church-going-ehristianity  of  his 
epoch.  What  the  Burlesquer  said  of  the  Puri- 
tans neatly  expresses  the  contempt  felt  by  his 
namesake. 

A  sect  whose  chief  devotion  lies 
In  odd,  perverse  antipathies, 
In  falling  out  with  that  or  this 
And  finding  somewhat  still  amiss; 
More  peevish,  cross,  and  splenetic 
Than  dog  distract  or  monkey  sick: 
That  with  more  care  keep  holyday 
The  wrong,  than  others  the  right  way; 
Compound  for  sins  they  are  inclined  to 
By  damning  those  they  have  no  inind  to. 

And  the  late  W.  E.  Henley's  summary  of  the 
first  Samuel  Butler  fits  the  second  almost  with- 
out the  change  of  a  word.  I  give  it  verbatim. 
"He  had  an  abundance  of  wit  of  the  best  and 
truest  sort;  he  was  an  indefatigable  observer; 
he  knew  opinions  well,  and  books  even  better; 
he  had  considered  life  acutely  and  severely;  as 
a  rhythmist  he  proceeded  from  none  and  has  had 
no  successor;  his  vocabulary  is  of  its  kind  in- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  235 

comparable;  his  work  is  a  very  hoard  of  sen- 
tences and  saws,  of  vigorous  locutions  and  pic- 
turesque colloquialisms,  of  strong  sound  sense 
and  robust  English.*' 

Bernard  Shaw,  taking  his  eye  off  Brieux  for 
a  moment,  informed  us  that  he  learned  more 
from  Butler  than  from  any  other  writer;  a 
statement  easier  to  believe  than  some  of  his 
affirmations.  Unfortunately  the  disciple  is  so 
much  above  his  lord  in  popular  estimation,  that 
we  have  all  been  withholding  honour  where 
honour  is  due.  After  one  has  read  Butler,  one 
sees  where  many  of  Shaw's  perversities  and 
ironies  came  from.  The  foundation  of  Butler's 
style  is  the  paradox;  moral  dynamics  are  re- 
versed ;  the  unpardonable  sin  is  conventionality. 
His  masterpiece  answers  no  questions;  solves 
no  problems;  chases  away  no  perplexities. 
Every  reader  becomes  an  interrogation  point. 
Butler  rubs  our  thoughts  the  wrong  way.  As 
axiom  after  axiom  is  ruthlessly  attacked,  we 
pick  over  our  minds  for  some  missile  to  throw 
at  him.  It  is  a  good  thing  for  every  man  and 
woman  whose  brain  happens  to  be  in  activity 


236  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

to  read  this  amazingly  clever,  original,  brilliant, 
diabolical  novel.  And  for  those  whose  brains, 
are  in  captivity  it  mav  smash  somp  fpft^rs. 
Every  one  who  understands  what  he  reads  will 
take  an  inventory  of  his  own  religious  and 
moral  stock. 

Butler  delighted  in  the  role  of  Advocatus  Dia- 
boli:  in  his  Note-Books  he  has  the  following 
apology  for  the  Devil:  ''It  must  be  remembered 
that  we  have  heard  only  one  side  of  the  case. 
God  has  written  all  the  books.''  Well,  He  cer- 
tainly did  not  write  this  one ;  He  permitted  the 
Devil  to  have  his  hour.  The  worst  misfortune 
that  can  happen  to  any  person,  says  Butler,  is 
to  lose  his  money;  the  second  is  to  lose  his 
health ;  and  the  loss  of  reputation  is  a  bad  third. 
He  seems  to  have  regarded  the  death  of  his 
father  as  the  most  fortunate  event  in  his  own 
life;  for  it  made  him  financially  independent. 
He  never  quite  forgave  the  old  man  for  hanging 
on  till  he  was  eighty  years  old.  He  ridiculed 
the  Bishop  of  Carlisle  for  saying  that  we  long 
to  meet  our  parents  in  the  next  world.  ' '  Speak- 
ing for  myself,  I  have  no  wish  to  see  my  father 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  237 

again,  and  I  think  it  likely  that  the  Bishop  of 
Carlisle  would  not  be  more  eager  to  see  his  than 
I  mine/'  Melchisedec  **was  a  really  happy 
man.  He  was  without  father,  without  mother, 
and  without  descent.  He  was  an  incarnate 
bachelor.    He  was  a  born  orphan." 

One  reason  why  The  Way  of  All  Flesh  is  be- 
coming every  year  more  widely  known,  is  be- 
cause it  happens  to  be  exactly  in  the  literary 
form  most  fashionable  in  fiction  at  this  moment. 
It  is  a  ^*life"  novel — it  is  a  biography,  which  of 
course  means  that  it  is  very  largely  an  auto- 
biography. Three  generations  of  the  hero's 
family  are  portrayed  with  much  detail ;  the  plot 
of  the  story  is  simply  chronological;  the  only 
agreeable  woman  in  the  book  was  a  personal 
friend  of  the  author.  Not  only  are  hundreds 
of  facts  in  the  novelist's  own  life  minutely  re- 
corded, it  is  a  spiritual  autobiography  as  well. 
It  was  his  habit — also  true  of  Arnold  Bennett — 
to  carry  a  notebook  in  his  pocket;  whenever  a 
thought  or  fancy  occurred  to  him,  immediately 
to  write  it  down.  An  immense  number  of  these 
fatherless  ideas  are  now  inwoven  in  this  novel. 


238  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

The  result  is  that  the  reader  literally  finds 
something  interesting  and  often  something  val- 
uable on  every  page.  The  style  is  so  closely 
packed  with  thought  that  it  produces  constant 
intellectual  delight.  This  is  well ;  for  I  can  re- 
call no  delight  of  any  other  kind. 

Just  as  Samuel  Butler  poured  out  in  Hudihras 
the  accumulated  bottled  venom  and  hatred  of 
many  years,  so  our  novelist  has  released  all  the 
repugnance,  the  rebellion,  the  impotent  rage  of 
childhood.  He  had  an  excellent  memory,  and 
seems  to  have  forgiven  nothing  and  forgotten 
nothing  that  happened  to  him  in  the  dependent 
years  of  his  life.  It  is  an  awkward  thing  to 
play  with  souls,  and  Butler  represents  the  souls 
of  boys  treated  by  their  parents  and  by  their 
school-teachers  with  astonishing  stupidity  and 
blundering  brutality.  It  is  a  wonderful  treatise 
on  the  art  of  how  not  to  bring  up  children;  and 
I  should  think  that  every  mother,  father,  and 
teacher  would  feel  some  sense  of  shame  and 
some  sense  of  fear.  For  a  good  many  years 
children  are  in  the  power  of  their  elders,  who 
so  greatly  excel  them  in  both  physical  strength 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  239 

and  in  cunning ;  but  every  child,  no  matter  how 
dutifully  he  may  kiss  the  rod,  becomes  in  after 
years  the  Judge  of  his  parents  and  of  his  teach- 
ers. Butler's  sympathy  with  children,  whose 
little  bodies  and  little  minds  are  often  in  abso- 
lute bondage  to  parents  both  dull  and  cruel,  is  a 
salient  quality  in  his  work.  One  is  appalled 
when  one  remembers  how  often  the  sensitive 
soul  of  a  little  boy  is  tortured  at  home,  simply 
by  coarse  handling.  This  championship  of 
children  places  Butler  with  Dickens,  though  I 
suppose  such  a  remark  would  have  been  re- 
garded by  Butler  as  an  insult. 

I  think  that  the  terrific  attack  on  **  professing 
Christians ' '  made  in  .this  novel  will  be  of  real 
service  to  Christianity.  Just  as  men  of  strong 
political  opinions  have  largely  abandoned  the 
old  habit  of  reading  the  party  paper,  and  now 
give  their  fiercest  opponents  a  hearing,  so  I 
think  good  Christian  people  will  derive  much 
benefit  from  an  attentive  perusal  of  this  work. 
The  religion  that  Butler  attacks  is  the  religion 
of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  unless  our  re- 
ligion exceeds  that,  none  of  us  is  going  to  enter 


240  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The  Church  needs 
clever,  active  antagonists  to  keep  her  up  to  the 
mark;  the  principle  of  Good  is  toughened  by 
constant  contact  with  the  principle  of  Evil; 
every  minister  ought  to  have  in  his  audience  a 
number  of  brilliant,  determined  opponents,  who 
have  made  up  their  minds  they  will  believe 
nothing  he  says;  I  have  no  doubt  that  God 
needs  the  Devil. 

Thus,  although  I  firmly  believe  this  is  a  dia- 
bolical novel,  I  think  it  will  prove  to  be  of  serv- 
ice to  Christianity.  I  know  it  has  done  me 
good.  I  cannot  forget  Butler's  remark  about 
all  those  church-goers  who  would  be  equally 
shocked  if  any  one  doubted  Christianity  or  if 
any  one  practised  it. 

Butler's  attitude  toward  everything  except 
Handel  and  himself  was  ironical;  he  delighted 
in  ridiculing  any  generally  accepted  tenet  in 
politics,  science,  art,  and  religion.  This  was 
often  done  behind  a  mask  of  grave,  candid  en- 
quiry, in  the  manner  of  Swift.  Even  his  per- 
sonal appearance  was  ironical,  for  although  he 
could  truthfully  have  said  **I  have  fought  the 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  241 

good  faith, ' '  he  looked  like  a  devout,  and  rather 
ignorant  evangelical  parson.^ 

Butler's  most  famous  disciple,  Mr.  Shaw, 
would  be  a  novelist  of  high  reputation  were  it 
not  for  the  fact  that,  like  Mr.  Barrie,  he  has 
achieved  greater  renown  in  another  field.  Yet 
Cashel  Byron's  Profession  is  just  as  good  a 
novel  in  1916  as  it  was  in  the  eighties,  when  it 
was  written ;  and  we  all  know  the  enthusiasm  it 
awakened  in  Stevenson,  who  read  it  when  its 
author's  name  had  no  significance.  In  sheer 
literary  excellence  Shaw's  later  and  more 
famous  works  do  not  surpass  this  book;  and  it 
possesses  one  quality  absent  in  all  the  plays, 
both  pleasant  and  unpleasant;  it  has  an  irre- 
sistible charm.  Like  many  pacifists,  Shaw  is 
not  greatly  shocked  at  prize-fighting;  the  way 
of  the  world,  of  course,  is  to  regard  profes- 
sional boxing  as  brutal,  and  war  as  noble  and 
sublime,  even  *^holy." 

Although,   with    the    exception    of    Thomas 

1  The  preceding  remarks  on  Butler  are  taken  by  kind  permis- 
sion of  E.  P.  Button  and  Company,  from  my  Introduction 
to  their  American  edition  of  The  Way  of  All  Flesh,  published 
in  1916. 


242  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Hardy,  there  is  no  titanic  figure  among  British 
novelists  of  the  present  moment,  the  number 
of  professional  novelists  of  high  standing  is 
nothing  less  than  remarkable.  I  wonder  at  the 
diffusion  of  talent.  I  think  I  could  name  twen- 
ty-five English  writers  of  the  twentieth  century 
whose  novels  have  dignity  and  distinction,  who 
are  reliable — ^who  can  be  depended  on  to  pro- 
duce something  worth  reading.  A  large  com- 
pany of  literary  experts  have  mastered  the  art 
of  fiction,  and  while  they  do  not  always  give  us 
a  good  story,  or  construct  a  good  plot,  the  pro- 
portion of  success  in  their  rapid  production  is 
high,  and  even  the  less  notable  part  of  their 
work  is  free  from  anything  shoddy.  An  epit- 
ome of  the  general  level  of  excellence,  a  fine 
representative  of  the  whole  school,  is  seen  in 
Eden  Phillpotts,  of  Devonshire.  Without  a 
single  flash  of  genius,  and  with  a  pseudo-scien- 
tific creed  that  is  irritating,  Mr.  Phillpotts 
writes  three  or  four  novels  a  year,  every  one  of 
which  has  value— and,  what  is  particularly  sur- 
prising, every  one  seems  deeply  thought  out, 
carefully  wrought,  full  of  meat.    It  ought  to 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  243 

take  him  three  years  to  write  any  one  of  these 
books,  instead  of  three  months,  which  is  all  the 
time  he  can  apparently  spare.  Like  his  master, 
Thomas  Hardy,  he  is  a  good  deal  of  a  pagan, 
though  not  altogether  a  pessimist;  and  like  his 
master,  he  has  a  deep,  genuine  vein  of  humour, 
which  brightens  his  darkest  tragedies,  and  con- 
stitutes the  chief  element  in  his  most  charming 
story,  Widecombe  Fair,  Just  as  in  some  of 
his  novels,  a  tor,  a  river,  or  a  moor  is  one  of 
the  chief  characters,  in  this  book  the  leading 
actor  is  the  village.  There  is  no  hero  or  hero- 
ine ;  we  follow  the  fortunes  of  a  group,  and  the 
author's  studies  of  Dartmoor  end  on  a  note  of 
pure  comedy.  One  should  read  his  preface  to 
Widecombe  Fair,  and  follow  his  advice.  He 
salutes  the  finished  work  of  twenty  years,  an- 
swers his  critics,  and  insists  on  his  undoubted 
right  to  be  judged  by  all  the  Dartmoor  books 
taken  together,  rather  than  by  any  one.  In  the 
work  of  twenty  years  he  has  tried  to  express  his 
creed  of  affirmation  in  life,  which  he  thinks 
chokes  pessimism ;  if  pessimism  be  mere  acqui- 
escence, it  could  indeed  not  breathe  on  those 


^44  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

heights.  But  the  affirmation  itself  in  these 
novels  means  tragedy,  and  a  final  tragic  answer 
to  life  is  not  entirely  removed  from  pessimism. 

Mr.  Phillpotts  is  at  his  best  when  he  stays  in 
his  corner,  both  in  time  and  space ;  his  least  suc- 
cessful books  are  The  Lovers — a  historical  ro- 
mance, which  seems  to  be  directly  aimed  at  an 
American  audience,  and  The  Joy  of  Youth, 
which  skips  blithely  to  Italy.  Both  these 
stories  were  published  in  1913.  His  solid  quali- 
ties as  a  novelist  shine  most  conspicuously  in 
The  Secret  Woman  (1905),  The  Portreeve 
(1906),  The  Three  Brothers  and  The  Haven 
(both  1909),  and  The  Thief  of  Virtue  (1910). 
I  think  The  Three  Brothers  is  his  best  novel, 
and  the  one  that  shows  most  brilliantly  his 
powers  of  characterisation. 

Although  he  bade  farewell  to  Dartmoor  in 
1913,  he  did  not  travel  very  far  from  his  be- 
loved country  in  BruneVs  Tower  (1915),  a 
novel  full  of  vitality.  The  protagonist  is  a  pot- 
tery, whose  centripetal  power  draws  in  all  the 
characters,  yes,  and  the  reader,  too ;  for  we  be- 
come as  interested  in  the  place  as  any  of  the 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL     .       245 

workmen.  The  specific  problem  of  the  story  is 
the  struggle  between. evil  antecedents  and  dog- 
like affection  to  a  patron;  this  struggle  takes 
place  in  the  soul  of  an  altogether  charming  boy. 
The  conflict  is  in  doubt  until  almost  the  last 
page,  when  the  victory  is  won  at  the  highest 
possible  price. 

Like  Kudyard  Kipling,  Mr.  Phillpotts  was 
born  in  India  and  educated  in  Devon.  Perhaps 
his  ardent  love  for  the  mists  of  the  moors  has 
been  strengthened  by  the  intolerable  sunshine 
of  the  land  of  his  birth. 

No  man  takes  his  art  more  seriously  than  he ; 
no  man  believes  more  profoundly  in  the  dignity 
of  the  novel.  When  we  remember  that  both 
Jane  Austen  and  Henry  James  assumed  a  de- 
fensive attitude,  the  advance  of  the  novel  in 
the  twentieth  century  is  conspicuously  shown  by 
what  Mr.  Phillpotts  wrote  for  the  New  York 
Times,  22  August,  1915:  '^The  art  of  the  novel 
embraces  every  sort  of  mental  interest.  .  .  . 
Among  those  who  regard  novel  writing  as  man's 
work,  and  the  noblest  of  arts — among  those  of 
fine  natural  endowment  who  approach  it  with 


246  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

sincerity  and  their  full  strength — shall  be 
found  the  best  writers  of  the  English  language 
at  present  living.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  contemporaries  have  written  some  of  the 
best  novels  in  our  tongue,  but  to  state  this  is 
not  to  disparage  the  pioneer  masters.  Field- 
ing and  Eichardson  had  a  different  field  to  play 
upon,  and  the  art  has  developed  so  enormously, 
the  models  from  other  nations  have  worked  such 
wonders,  that  the  novel  as  written  in  England 
and  America  now  challenges  the  finest  intellects 
and  greatest  artists  of  the  time.  The  very  fire 
of  life  glows  in  this  art,  and  its  possibilities  are 
beyond  all  prediction,  for  fiction  is  the  greatest 
education  force  in  the  modem  world. ' ' 

The  Zola  type  of  experimental  novel  has 
never  been  popular  in  England,  as  it  has  in 
France,  Germany,  Italy,  Sweden,  and  Eussia; 
it  is  bunkered  by  the  English  conscience.  Al- 
though France  and  England  are  separated  by 
only  twenty  miles  of  salt-water,  their  traditional 
attitudes  toward  art  are  as  different  as  though 
the  two  countries  were  on  separate  planets. 
Just  why  such  intimate  neighbours  should  show 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  247 

so  tremendous  a  parallax  in  their  view  of  art 
may  be  left  to  some  one  else  to  explain;  the  fact 
is  clear  enough,  when  we  remember  that  Guy  de 
Maupassant  read  all  his  manuscripts  to  his 
mother,  and  that  Alphonse  Daudet  thought 
Sapho  a  good  book  for  his  son.  The  foremost 
living  representative  of  the  experimental  novel 
in  England  is  George  Moore,  who  is  not  Eng- 
lish at  all,  but  an  Irishman  with  a  French  edu- 
cation, like  Oscar  Wilde.  George  Moore  is  a 
true  disciple  of  Zola ;  he  takes  realistic  art  very 
seriously,  and  solemnly  announces  that  his  chief 
recreation  is  religion.  Wordsworth  ^s  Prelude 
seems  scanty,  when  we  remember  that  George 
Moore  has  written  the  history  of  his  own  life  in 
five  volumes;  and  although  the  latest  one  is 
called  Vale,  it  may  be  so  only  in  a  Pattian  sense. 
Not  one  of  these  autobiographies  is  as  truthful 
as  Esther  Waters  or  Evelyn  Innes;  conversa- 
tions with  distinguished  people  are  reported  at 
great  length  and  with  much  detail,  conversa- 
tions that  may  never  have  occurred.  And  while 
Mr.  Moore  insists  in  telling  us  all  about  his 
amours,  the  facts  in  every  case  may  be  reason- 


248  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

ably  doubted.  All  of  these  pages  of  alleged  bio- 
graphical sensuality  are  really  senile — it  is  like 
a  weak  old  man  licking  his  lips. 

Some  one  has  said  that  George  Moore  has 
never  recovered  from  his  surprise  at  having 
written  a  really  good  book — Esther  Waters, 
which  appeared  in  the  memorable  year  of  1894. 
Previously,  he  had  produced  a  number  of  ex- 
perimental novels,  that  were  perhaps  more  ex- 
periments than  novels.  I  refer  to  A  Modern 
Lover  (1883),  A  Mummer's  Wife  (1884), 
Spring  Days  (1888),  MiJce  Fletcher  (1889). 
These  books  all  show  a  certain  artistic  sincerity, 
a  strenuous  simplicity  of  style,  without  any  real 
power  of  characterisation ;  they  would  not  have 
attracted  any  attention  at  all,  were  it  not  for 
their  lubricity.  No  one  seemed  to  admire  the 
author,  or  to  take  him  seriously.  All  he  had  ac- 
quired was  notoriety,  '*the  bastard  sister  of 
reputation'';  and  his  notoriety  was  of  a  de- 
cidedly unsavoury  kind.  Then,  with  the  ap- 
pearance of  Esther  Waters,  he  conquered  his 
public,  both  in  England  and  America.  By  the 
irony  of  fate,  the  book  was  widely  advertised 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  249 

as  a  moral  tract;  many  thousand  copies  of  a 
cheap  edition  were  circulated  with  a  horrible 
cover  design ;  with  a  loud  label  to  the  effect  that 
this  novel  was  the  ** Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  of  the 
White  Slaves.''  Knowing  George  Moore's 
ideas  as  we  do,  this  perversity  of  advertising 
puffery  had  a  humour  all  its  own.  One  might 
more  easily  imagine  the  late  Thomas  Huxley  as 
a  Gospel  evangelist. 

The  extraordinary  merit  of  Esther  Waters 
was  immediately  recognised  by  good  judges. 
Like  Pamela,  Esther  is  a  housemaid,  who  passes 
through  various  adventures,  retaining  the  in- 
terest, the  sympathy,  and  the  admiration  of  the 
reader.    It  is  a  masterpiece  in  the  experimen-  [ 
tal  school ;  there  are  no  comments,  no  doctrines,  i 
no  teachings;  and  there  is  nothing  superfluous. 
I  marvel  at  the  economy  of  design,  at  the  econ- 
omy of  language ;  it  seems  as  if  there  were  not  ^ 
a  superfluous  word  in  the  book.    Without  once  ' 
raising  his  voice,  Mr.  Moore  holds  our  closest 
attention  from  first  page  to  last.    For  one  can- 
not read  this  work  of  fiction  without  believing 
that  everything  in  it  is  the  living  truth.    If  one 


250  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

wishes  to  know  the  difference  between  realistic 
art  and  sensational  daubing,  one  has  merely  to 
read  the  account  of  Derby  Day  in  Esther 
Waters  and  then  compare  it  with  the  rhetorical 
version  in  The  Christian,  by  Hall  Caine.  Al- 
though I  have  never  seen  the  Derby,  I  experi- 
enced all  the  pleasures  of  recognition  in  George 
Moore's  account  of  it. 

Even  if  not  intended  by  the  author,  Esther 
Waters  has  a  nobly  ethical  tone ;  the  tone  of  sin- 
cerity and  truth.  No  one  can  read  it  without 
admiration  for  its  author's  skill,  or  without 
feeling  a  moral  stimulation. 

This  extraordinary  novel  was  a  turning-point 
in  the  author's  career.  While  he  has  not  writ- 
ten anything  since  of  quite  equal  value,  the  dif- 
ference between  the  novels  that  came  after 
Esther  Waters  and  those  that  preceded  it,  is 
the  difference  between  an  intellectually  robust 
man  and  a  morbid  boy.  The  three  novels, 
Evelyn  Innes  (1898),  the  sequel  Sister  Teresa 
(1901),  and  The  Lake  (1905),  are  all  notable 
works  of  art;  all  emphatically  worth  reading 
and  re-reading.    I  can  see  how  some  critics 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  251 

might  regard  The  Lake  as  his  best  work ;  it  has 
a  subdued,  a  restrained  power,  that  takes  a  per- 
manent place  in  the  memory.  The  discussions 
of  music  in  Evelyn  Innes  are  immensely  inter- 
esting to  the  amateur ;  and  inasmuch  as  Evelyn 
was  a  prima  donna,  I  felt  high  curiosity  in  ask- 
ing the  late  Madame  Nordica  what  she  thought 
of  the  book.  She  had  nothing  but  contempt  for 
it,  saying  the  remarks  on  music  were  of  no  value 
whatever,  and  that  they  revealed  appalling 
ignorance.  Then  I  asked  a  distinguished  opera 
composer;  he  replied  that  the  musical  knowl- 
edge displayed  was  very  remarkable,  and  that 
the  discussions  of  music  were  valuable  and  in- 
teresting. 

For  my  part,  having  no  right  to  an  opinion 
on  the  merits  of  this  question,  the  wonderful 
Vorspiel  to  Lohengrin  has  taken  on  a  new  sig- 
nificance for  me  after  reading  the  conversation 
about  it  between  Evelyn  and  the  nun. 

George  Moote's  short  stories  are  like  a  grey 
day  in  Ireland.  One  of  those  in  Celibates  was 
written  apparently  under  the  influence  of  Eus- 
sian  naturalism. 


252  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Twenty  years  ago,  while  doing  some  review- 
ing for  a  New  York  journal,  I  received  a  pack- 
age of  new  novels.  The  title  of  one  of  them 
caught  my  fancy,  though  I  had  never  heard  of 
the  author.  It  was  The  Wheels  of  Chance,  by 
H.  G.  Wells.  He  had  been  a  maker  of  books  less 
than  a  twelvemonth,  though  prophetically  pro- 
lific, having  published  four  separate  volumes 
the  first  year  of  his  career,  1895.  It  may  be  a 
damaging  admission,  but  while  I  have  a  high 
respect  for  the  ability  of  Mr.  Wells,  I  have 
never  enjoyed  reading  any  one  of  his  novels  so 
much  as  I  enjoyed  The  Wheels  of  Chance,  One 
may  roar  with  laughter  at  Bealhy  (1915),  but 
there  is  no  more  delicacy  in  its  humour  than  in  a 
farce-film;  whereas  The  Wheels  of  Chance,  de- 
scribing the  bicycle  adventures  of  Mr.  Hoop- 
driver,  the  dry-goods  clerk,  has  something  of 
the  combined  mirth,  pathos,  and  tenderness  of 
Don  Quixote.  There  is  not  a  hint  in  this  little 
book  of  Wells  the  Socialist,  Wells  the  Eef  ormer, 
Wells  the  Futurist,  Wells*  the  Philosopher — 
there  is  only  Wells  the  artist,  whom  I  admire 
more  than  I  do  the  sociological  preacher. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  253 

I  am  quite  willing  to  admit  that  it  is  the  more 
pretentious  Wells  who  has  become  the  world- 
figure,  for  a  world-figure  he  undoubtedly  is. 
Before  the  Great  War,  his  books  were  in  the 
window  of  every  important  book-shop  in  Ger- 
many, where  he  was  studied  rather  than  read. 
French  and  Russian  translations  poured  from 
the  press  year  after  year.  And  yet  I  am  not  at 
all  sure  that  he  has  made  any  real  contribution 
to  modern  thought,  whereas  he  has  made  a  dis- 
tinct contribution  to  modern  literary  art.  He 
writes  books  faster  than  any  one  can  read  them ; 
faster  than  any  one  publisher  can  produce 
them,  as  may  be  seen  by  a  reference  to  his  bibli- 
ography. Yet  as  a  rule  his  work  is  neither 
shallow  nor  trivial. 

In  one  respect  he  has  never  fulfilled  the  prom- 
ise of  The  Wheels  of  Chance.  There  was  a 
touch  of  spirituality  in  that  playful  comedy,  a 
flash  that  has  since  been  altogether  obscured  by 
the  cloudy  sky  of  materialism.  It  seems  unfor- 
tunate that  when  Mr.  Wells  has  so  many  gifts, 
so  much  talent,  he  has  not  the  little  more,  and 
how  much  it  is !    He  is  a  man  of  prose,  down- 


254  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

right,  hard-lieaded,  matter-of-fact.  One  could 
hardly  expect  him  to  write  like  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne, but  it  is  a  pity  that  he  should  be  as  far 
removed  from  Hawthorne  as  a  railway  time- 
table. How  is  it  possible  for  a  man  to  have  so 
much  humour  and  be  so  limited  ?  Yet  that  kind 
comes  only  by  prayer  and  fasting,  words  that 
have  no  meaning  for  Mr.  Wells. 

Many  of  his  stories  are  like  a  dusty  road,  as 
Scott's  are  like  a  thick  forest.  We  reach  cer- 
tain elevations  and  see  ahead  of  us  nothing  but 
the  long  brown  way,  in  the  pitiless  glare  of-  the 
sun.  That  was  my  feeling  all  through  Ann 
Veronica.  I  liked  Marriage  much  better,  though 
the  wilderness-cure  was  a  large  order.  I  liked 
The  Wife  of  Sir  Isaac  Barman  better  yet,  for  it 
contains  an  admirable  commingling  of  the  two 
authors  living  in  the  brain  of  Mr.  Wells,  the 
author  of  The  Wheels  of  Chance,  Kipps  and 
Bealhy — and  the  man  who  wrote  Ann  Veronica 
and  Marriage.  For  he  is  a  dual  personality,  as 
his  friend  Arnold  Bennett  is — ^what  a  difference 
between  the  serious  and  the  trivial  Bennett ! 

The  wife  of  Sir  Isaac  is  a  lovely  woman,  full 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  255 

of  charm.  She  married  the  impossible  Isaac 
because  she  could  not  be  sufficiently  disobliging 
to  cause  him  the  annoyance  or  even  the  incon- 
venience of  a  refusal.  This  marriage  turned 
out  altogether  bad,  worse  than  her  soft  heart's 
imaginings.  Death  released  her;  in  the  first 
sweets  of  freedom  appears  the  '*  damned  liter- 
ary man,"  who,  in  contrast  to  Sir  Isaac,  seemed 
at  first  to  bear  healing  in  his  wings.  But 
closer  inspection  reveals  this  secretary-bird  to 
be  a  goose,  with  the  futile  gabble  and  peevish 
disposition  of  the  goose.  The  comedy  of  the 
last  scene  is  wholly  delightful.  The  shy,  gentle 
woman,  wearing  the  colour  of  freedom — ^black 
— shyly,  gently,  but  decisively  refuses  him  in 
the  garden.  Like  a  spoiled  child  who  has  been 
refused 'a  toy,  like  the  hero  of  a  French  novel 
who  has  been  deprived  of  his  mistress,  the  man 
of  letters  rushes  away  down  the  rainy  garden 
path,  crying,  weeping,  sobbing,  roaring  out  his 
woe  to  the  circumambient  air.  This  is  too  much 
for  the  soft-hearted  Mrs.  Harman;  she  cannot 
bear  to  behold  such  suffering.  Paint,  yet  pur- 
suing, she  reaches  the  breathless  hero,  and  we 


256  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

leave  her  as  she  enters  slavery  a  second  time. 
Perhaps,  had  she  been  more  resolute,  more 
wise — ^perhaps  we  should  not  love  her  so  much. 

If  the  English  have  no  sense  of  humour,  their 
writers  must  furnish  the  exceptions  that  prove 
the  rule.  I  can  think  of  no  living  English  nov- 
elist of  distinction  who  is  not  a  humourist,  and 
of  only  one  among  the  dead — Samuel  Eichard- 
son.  Hardy,  De  Morgan,  Bennett,  Wells,  Phill- 
potts,  Ollivant,  Chesterton,  Hutchinson,  Lucas, 
Hawkins,  Beerbohm,  Locke,  Merrick,  Elinor 
Mordaunt — they  are  all  humourists,  each  in  his 
own  degree  and  with  his  own  special  j3avour. 
Nor  would  it  be  possible  to  deny  the  title  alto- 
gether to  John  Galsworthy. 

Among  contemporary  men  of  letters,  one  of 
the  best-beloved  is  William  John  Locke,  who 
has  made  large  additions  to  the  gaiety  of  na- 
tions, and  who  is  trying  to  justify  two-thirds  of 
his  name  by  a  considerable  amount  of  original 
and  sound  philosophy.  This  man  took  the 
steep  and  thorny  road  to  the  heaven  of  literary 
fame,  by  graduating  mathematical  tripos  at  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge.    There  is  no  doubt 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  257 

that  a  large  proportion  of  successful  novelists 
and  dramatists  have  exhibited  high  talent  in 
the  study  of  mathematics.  The  constructive 
ability,  the  skill  in  original  problems,  very  often 
bears  fruit  later  in  original  literary  work.  The 
most  conspicuous  example  at  present  is  Thomas 
Hardy,  whose  professional  training  as  an  archi- 
tect appears  in  every  one  of  his  novels,  giving 
them  a  solidity  and  beauty  of  construction  en- 
tirely beyond  the  range  of  all  his  living  con- 
temporaries. There  cannot  be  the  slightest 
doubt  that  Mr.  Locke's  honours  in  mathematics 
and  his  successful  professional  work  as  an 
architect  have  been  of  immense  service  in  his 
brilliant  career  as  a  novelist. 

Mr.  Locke  has  exactly  what  Mr.  Wells  has 
not — ^the  power  to  make  his  readers  love  him. 
We  all  admire  the  enormous  industry  and  the 
mental  vigour  of  H.  G.  Wells — ^we  admire  these 
qualities  without  feeling  any  affection  for  the 
author ;  he  is  a  high-power  machine-gun  in  mod- 
ern fiction,  making  Hawthorne  look  like  a  muz- 
zle-loading musket.  But  we  feel  no  more  love 
for  him  than  for  a  load  of  bricks.    In  all  the 


258  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

novels  of  W.  J.  Locke  there  is  pervading 
warmth  of  heart.  In  Septimus  (1909),  his  most 
humorous  book,  he  has,  by  sheer  capacity  for 
affection,  made  two  heroes  out  of  the  most  un- 
promising material.  Sypher  is  a  vulgar,  bla- 
tant patent-medicine  advertiser;  he  bears  the 
same  relation  to  a  gentleman  that  a  steam  calli- 
ope bears  to  a  violin.  Septimus  is  a  harmless 
nincompoop,  about  as  aggressive  as  a  wounded 
rabbit.  Yet,  by  ** God's  passionless  reformers, 
influences,''  both  these  men  are  transformed 
into  true  heroes,  and  when  we  take  leave  of 
them,  we  stand  uncovered. 

This  novel  Septimus  is  one  of  the  funniest 
books  of  the  twentieth  century.  It  is  the  only 
novel  of  this  century  that  I  have  been  unable  to 
read  to  myself  in  the  presence  of  strangers. 
As  a  rule,  no  matter  how  comic  the  situations 
may  be  in  the  book  you  hold  in  your  hand,  if  it 
be  a  public  place,  your  countenance  betrays 
nothing  of  the  roaring  mirth  in  your  brain ;  you 
are  enjoying  every  word  with  no  demonstra- 
tions. I  attempted  to  read  Septimus  on  the 
train,  and  came  near  to  being  ejected.    The  sud- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  259 

den  surprises  of  the  humour  were  so  great  that 
I  vented  prodigious  cachinnations,  which 
shocked  me  as  much  as  they  did  the  passengers. 
I  can  see  those  passengers,  now,  turning  around, 
craning  their  necks,  looking  with  raised  eye- 
brows at  their  insane  associate.  The  hours 
Septimus  selected  for  his  meals,  his  method  of 
servant  annunciation,  his  scheme  for  avoiding 
railway  accidents — no  one  has  any  right  to  be 
so  funny! 

There  is  a  remarkable  progression  in  Mr. 
Locke's  most  famous  novels — a  distinct  pro- 
gression from  paganism  to  Christianity.  Al- 
though he  had  published  a  number  of  books  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  he  attracted  not  much 
attention  until  1905,  when  The  Morals  of  Mar- 
cus Ordeyne  appeared.  Personally  I  cared  lit- 
tle for  this  story — the  return  of  Eve  is  vieux 
jeu,  although  the  author  has  tried  it  once  more 
in  Jaffery  (1915).  But  it  was  unmistakably 
the  work  of  a  literary  expert,  almost  dazzlingly 
brilliant.  It  was  also  pagan,  no  hint  of  a  Chris- 
tian point  of  view.  It  was  followed  the  next 
year  by  what  many  regard  as  his  masterpiece, 


260  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

The  Beloved  Vagabond — delightful,  charming, 
witty — with  no  indication  of  a  moral  basis,  the 
ethics  being  as  footloose  as  the  hero.  Three 
years  passed,  and  in  Septimus  the  central 
Christian  idea  of  sacrifice  was  the  foundation 
of  the  plot.  Then  came  Simon  the  Jester ,  a 
story  analogous  to  Browning's  Light  Woman, 
which,  to  be  sure,  Mr.  Hornung  had  already 
taken  in  No  Hero,  This  novel  is  illumined 
with  deep  religious  feeling,  and  as  if  to  leave 
no  doubt  on  the  subject,  Mr.  Locke  gave  us 
later  his  sincere  and  beautiful  Three  Wise  Men. 

In  The  Glory  of  Clementina  Wing  (1911) 
we  have  again  Mr.  Locke  the  ethical  philosopher. 
His  later  books  are  essays  of  a  rather  different 
nature,  and  are  not  nearly  so  successful;  the 
Fortunate  Youth  is  a  rather  pointless  extrava- 
ganza, and  while  Jaffery  is  an  immense  im- 
provement, it  cannot  compare  in  beauty  and 
charm  with  The  Beloved  Vagabond  or  Septimus, 

Mr.  Alfred  Ollivant  in  1898  produced  the  best 
dog  story  ever  written — Bob,  Son  of  Battle,  a 
story  distinctly  superior  to  Bab,  to  The  Bar 
Sinister,  and  to  The  Call  of  the  Wild.    It  has 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  261 

already  become  a  classic,  althougli  it  has  a 
thousand  readers  in  America  to  a  dozen  in  Eng- 
land. There  is  not  a  town  of  any  size  in  the 
United  States  that  does  not  contain  ardent 
lovers  of  this  powerful  and  beautiful  novel ;  yet 
it  is  very  rare  that  one  meets  an  Englishman 
who  has  even  heard  of  it.  I  have  never  met 
one,  though  I  have  asked  the  question  many 
times;  and  it  was  refreshing  when  I  enquired 
of  the  Scot,  J.  M.  Barrie,  if  he  knew  Owd  Boh, 
to  hear  him  say,  *  *  Well,  rather  I ' ' 

Since  the  appearance  of  Romola,  moral  decay 
has  been  a  favourite  study  of  English  novelists ; 
and  although  we  know  what  Euskin  thought  of 
the  Decline  and  Fall,  we  do  not  care.  For  we 
know  well  enough  the  ethical  value  of  the  study 
of  decadence,  whether  the  patient  be  a  nation 
or  an  individual.  Browning,  with  all  his  hearty 
faith,  did  not  hesitate  to  study  the  decay  of 
love;  and  one  of  the  most  brilliant  presenta- 
tions of  this  common  phenomenon  appears  in 
an  extremely  clever  work  of  fiction  published 
in  1891  by  Mrs.  W.  K.  Clifford,  Love  Letters 
of  a  Worldly  Woman;  which  has  for  its  text, 


262  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

a  citation  from  One  Word  More — ** Wherefore? 
Heaven's  gift  takes  earth's  abatement."  This 
book  follows  Eichardson's  example  in  every- 
thing but  length,  being  cast  in  the  form  of  let- 
ters. There  is  a  delicate  psychological  analy- 
sis here  that  one  cannot  read  without  mental 
pleasure.  Mrs.  Clifford  has  produced  many 
works  since  then,  and  I  hope  she  will  write  many 
more.  But  she  has  never  done  anything  quite 
equal  in  artistic  precision  to  that  tiny,  early 
masterpiece. 

Miss  Cholmondeley,  with  her  sombre  talent, 
ought  to  write  something  in  this  vein  better 
than  she  has  thus  far  succeeded  in  accomplish- 
ing. While  reading  Red  Pottage  and  especially 
Prisoners,  I  am  conscious  of  a  tremendous  la- 
tent power  that  does  not  reach  the  printed  page. 
Is  her  difficulty  merely  one  of  articulation? 

Two  brilliant  studies  of  moral  decay  in  the 
individual  may  be  seen  in  two  recent  novels :  I 
refer  to  In  Cotton  Wool  (1912)  by  W.  B.  Max- 
well, and  to  Tributaries  (1914)  (American 
title,  The  House  of  Deceit) ^  by  an  English 
author  who  wishes  to  remain  anonymous.    In 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  263 

Cotton  Wool  has  a  sloping  descent  that  makes 
the  first  chapter  and  the  last  as  different  as  the 
Lilliputians  and  the  Yahoos;  its  purpose  is 
purely  ethical,  its  art  absolutely  sincere.  The 
line  of  least  resistance  leads  to  hell.  In  Tribu- 
taries, we  have  another  melancholy  but  ethi- 
cally valuable  picture  of  slow  and  subtle  moral 
deterioration.  The  hero 's  course  is  not  straight 
down,  but  in  spirals ;  he  rises  a  little  after  each 
relapse,  only  to  sink  deeper  on  the  next  slide, 
and  eventually  to  become  an  incurable  case — a 
lost  soul. 

The  level  of  the  work  of  Leonard  Merrick  is 
high,  but  it  would  have  been  better  for  his  fame 
had  he  written  ten  worthless  books  and  one  mas- 
terpiece. He  is  a  novelist  of  real  distinction, 
incapable  of  producing  sensational,  cheap, 
superficial,  or  stodgy  books.  The  oft-quoted 
bull  exactly  fits  his  work:  although  he  seldom 
rises  above  his  average,  he  never  falls  below  it. 
Any  one  of  his  novels  may  be  safely  recom- 
mended to  beguile  the  tedium  of  a  railway  jour- 
ney ;  railway  travel  is  generally  as  disagreeable 
as  an  operation,  and  one  should  always  take  an 


264  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

anaesthetic.  With  a  good  novel,  the  patient 
reaches  his  destination  unaware  of  the  jolts 
and  stops  that  punctuated  progress. 

There  is  a  shocking  sincerity  in  the  work  of 
H.  H.  Bashford  that  ought  to  carry  him  far  on 
the  road  toward  permanent  fame.  In  The  Pil- 
grims' March,  we  have  scenes  that  find  their 
only  counterpart  in  Fanny's  First  Play,  In  a 
more  powerful,  and  much  more  disagreeable 
story,  Pity  the  Poor  Blind,  we  have  a  picture 
of  life  in  an  English  country  house  that  I  ar- 
dently hope  is  untrue.  The  study  of  the  self- 
deceived  clergyman  converted  by  a  perfectly 
rudimentary  and  perfectly  healthy  female,  is 
not  easy  to  forget.  Perhaps  the  most  original 
character  in  the  story  is  the  little  sister.  In 
the  course  of  my  adventures  in  fiction,  I  have 
met  many  limbs  of  Satan,  in  the  perfect  dis- 
guise of  innocent  girlhood.  Yet  never  anything 
to  compare  with  this  creature.  She  is  not  an 
enfant  terrible;  she  is  a  child  of  hell. 

Delightful  it  is  to  turn  from  the  sulphurous 
laughter  of  Mr.  Bashford  to  the  wholesome  out- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  265 

door  heartiness  of  Mr.  A.  S.  M.  Hutchinson. 
In  The  Happy  Warrior  (1912),  he  created  the 
most  irresistibly  winsome  boy  that  I  have  ever 
met,  in  or  out  of  books — *^Did  you  say  GetapT^ 
Like  Mercutio,  he  was  too  good  to  last — the 
author  had  to  kill  him.  Yet  the  death  of  Mer- 
cutio is  a  vital  factor  in  the  plot  of  Shake- 
speare's tragedy,  whereas  there  was  no  neces- 
sity for  the  death  of  our  young  warrior.  In  A 
Clean  Heart  (1914),  we  have  the  very  extremes 
of  emotion.  No  one  whose  nerves  are  askew 
should  read  the  first  third  of  the  book;  it  is  a 
terrible  picture  of  mental  obsession  becoming 
madness.  I  thought  I  was  going  to  lose  my 
mind.  The  scene  changes  from  the  horror  of 
insanity  to  such  outrageous  mirth,  horse-play, 
buffoonery,  that  one  forgets  approaching  mad- 
ness and  holds  one's  sides  in  a  veritable  agony 
of  laughter.  The  egoist  learns  Christianity 
first  from  a  roaring  drunkard  and  then  from  an 
ignorant  girl ;  learns  the  truth  only  by  the  sacri- 
fice of  two  persons  perhaps  more  valuable  than 
he.    This  is  a  deeply  religious  book;  illustrat- 


266  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

ing  with  striking  power  the  Scriptural  text  that 
supplies  the  title.  Mr.  Hutchinson  bids  fair  to 
be  a  vital  force  in  modern  jfiction. 

Mr.  St.  John  Ervine,  the  Irish  dramatist, 
published  in  1914  a  sombre  and  depressing 
novel  called  Mrs,  Martin's  Man — not  by  any 
means  a  wholly  successful  book,  but  truly 
original,  quite  out  of  the  ordinary  and  conven- 
tional rut.  His  next  story,  Alice  and  a  Family, 
is  one  of  the  most  charming,  enliveningly  hu- 
morous character-sketches  of  our  time.  The 
dialogue  has  a  steady  brilliance  that  is  aston- 
ishing; no  lapses  from  beginning  to  end.  It  is 
a  story  of  the  London  slums  exactly  as  The 
Rosie  World  is  a  story  of  the  New  York  slums. 
And  the  resemblance  is  carried  much  further, 
for  in  each  instance  it  is  a  little  girl  who  pulls 
the  strings.  If  each  family  in  the  world  had 
either  a  Rosie  or  an  Alice,  the  millennium  would 
materialise. 


CHAPTER  X 

TWENTIETH   CENTUKY  AMERICAN   NOVELISTS 

The  leading  contemporary  Americans — Losses  by  death 
and  depreciation — James  Lane  Allen — Charles  Stewart — 
H.  K.  Viele — Henry  Harland — Owen  Wister — Winston 
Churchill — Art  and  politics — Booth  Tarkington — The  In- 
diana School — Jack  London — Robert  Herrick — H.  S.  Harri- 
son— Gertrude  Atherton — Mary  Wilkins — Edith  Wharton — 
Dorothy  Canfield — ^Anne  Sedgwick. 

Some  Americans  of  promise  have  been  defeated 
by  death ;  others  have  been  beaten  by  their  own 
past.  A  conspicuous  example  of  the  first  class 
is  Frank  Norris;  of  the  second,  James  Lane 
Allen.  No  matter  what  one's  ambition  may  be 
^-poetry,  engineering,  social  prestige,  dancing, 
tennis — there  are  plenty  of  active  and  merciless 
competitors;  but  the  most  active  and  the  most 
merciless  is  one's  own  self.  The  history  of 
athletics  is  the  tragedy  of  the  athlete  trying  to 
keep  up  with  himself,  and  invariably  being 
beaten.  The  biography  of  nearly  every  profes- 
sional baseball  player  is  the  melancholy  circle — 

267 


268  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

from  oblivion  to  the  minor  league  to  tlie  major 
league  to  the  minor  league  to  oblivion.  He 
completes  this  orbit  in  about  the  time  it  takes 
Jupiter  to  go  once  around  the  sun.  But  the 
path  of  the  literary  man  ought  to  be  as  the  shin- 
ing light,  that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the 
perfect  day.  Seldom  is  this  the  case.  Black- 
more  wrote  Lorna  Do  one,  and  spent  thirty 
strenuous  years  in  a  losing  race  with  himself. 
Kipling,  in  the  prime  of  life,  cannot  recapture 
the  first,  fine,  careless  rapture — and  how  earn- 
estly he  tries ;  with  what  bulldog  determination ! 
To  produce  one  work  of  genius  is  perhaps 
enough  for  a  lifetime ;  and  yet  there  must  be  the 
very  passion  of  failure  in  the  realisation  that 
one  cannot  equal  one's  past  mental  achieve- 
ments. Many  authors  know  in  their  own  hearts 
what  Swift  meant  when,  turning  over  the  pages 
of  A  Tale  of  a  Tub,  he  cried  out,  **Good  God, 
what  a  genius  I  had  when  I  wrote  that  book ! ' ' 
When  The  Choir  Invisible  appeared  in  1897 
it  received  both  in  England  and  in  America  the 
acclaim  it  richly  deserved.  Since  that  time  Mr. 
Allen  has  been  led  astray  from  the  fields  of  art 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  269 

by  some  kind  of  portentous  philosophy.  Even 
a  good  creed  will  often  wreck  an  artist;  but 
when  the  light  that  is  in  him  is  darkness,  how 
great  is  that  darkness!  To  see  how  far  from 
truth  and  nature  a  philosophical  scheme  will 
drag  a  really  intelligent  writer,  one  has  only  to 
read  The  Bride  of  the  Mistletoe  (1909).  This 
story  is  not  meant  to  be  a  *'gramercy"  book; 
it  is  not  intended  to  be  a  high-flown  historical 
romance.  No,  it  describes  a  modern  college 
professor's  conversations  with  his  wife;  and 
they  have  been  married  a  goodly  number  of 
years.  Now  when  a  man  and  a  woman  have 
been  married  ten  years,  they  know  each  other 
rather  well ;  whatever  the  mask  worn  in  public, 
however  successful  the  man  may  be  in  the 
rhetorical  deceit  of  strangers,  at  home  there  is 
a  person  on  whom  this  kind  of  thing  won't  work. 
Yet  this  is  the  way  Mr.  Allen's  college  professor 
talks  to  his  own  wife;  talks  to  her  when  they 
are  alone,  without  a  gallery : 

*' Josephine,  sometimes  while  looking  out  of 
the  study  window  a  spring  morning,  I  have 
watched  you  strolling  among  the  flowers  of  the 


270  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

lawn.  I  have  seen  you  linger  near  a  honey- 
suckle in  full  bloom  and  question  the  blossoms 
in  your  questioning  way — you  who  are  always 
wishing  to  probe  to  the  heart  of  things,  to  drain 
out  of  them  the  red  drop  of  their  significance. 
But,  grey-eyed  querist  of  actuality,  those  fra- 
grant trumpets  could  blow  to  your  ear  no  mes- 
sage about  their  origin.'' 

Now  what  would  happen  to  a  man  in  the 
twentieth  century  who  should  address  his  wife 
(when  no  one  else  was  around)  as  *^ grey-eyed 
querist  of  actuality''?  She  would  either  burst 
into  irrepressible  laughter  or,  after  an  anx- 
ious scrutiny,  she  would  take  his  tempera- 
ture. 

If  this  book  were  the  work  of  some  gushing 
girl — but  it  isn't;  it  was  written  by  a  trained 
novelist  of  distinction,  a  man  who  has  honestly 
earned  fame  by  a  notable  story.  Yet  to  those 
who  are  wondering  what  is  the  matter  with  Mr. 
Allen,  The  Bride  of  the  Mistletoe  is  instructive 
and  explanatory.  To  me  such  rhodomontade  in 
a  novel  is  as  unpleasant  as  sanctimonious  cant, 
or  the  bunkum  we  hear  from  those  **friends  of 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  271 

the  workingman, '  ^  the  candidates  for  political 
office. 

The  American  novelist  most  worthy  to  fill  the 
particular  vacancy  caused  by  the  death  of  Mark 
Twain  is  Charles  D.  Stewart.  His  literary  pro- 
duction is  varied,  both  in  subject-matter  and  in 
excellence;  and  he  has  written  two  novels  that 
are  genuine  studies  of  American  life,  informed 
with  rich  humour — The  Fugitive  Blacksmith 
(1905)  dinA  Partners  of  Providence  (1907).  In 
the  former,  the  story  of  the  man  left  alone  with 
the  sheep  and  driven  mad  by  the  stars  is  art  of 
high  sincerity.  In  the  latter,  there  are  two 
leading  characters,  the  Mississippi  and  the  Mis- 
souri. These  mighty  rivers  become  mighty  per- 
sonalities. This  is  the  book  that  in  vividness  of 
description,  accurate  reporting,  lively  imagina- 
tion, and  roaring  mirth  infallibly  reminds  the 
reader  of  Mark  Twain. 

The  death  of  Herman  Knickerbocker  Viele  in 
1908  robbed  American  literature  of  a  brilliant 
novelist.  His  Last  of  the  Knickerbockers  con- 
tains pictures  of  a  New  York  boarding-house 
worthy   of  Balzac;   it  is   a  novel  combining 


272  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

realism,  wit  and  tenderness  with  a  certain  deli- 
cacy of  touch  rare  on  this  side  of  the  ocean. 
His  other  story,  The  Inn  of  the  Silver  Moon 
(1900),  has  a  grace,  humour,  and  charm  worthy 
of  the  French  scene  where  it  is  laid.  It  seems 
strange  that  work  of  such  distinction  did  not  at- 
tract more  general  attention;  but  Mr.  Viele 
would  surely  have  received  adequate  recogni- 
tion if  he  had  lived  longer. 

The  late  Henry  Harland  made  an  artistic  mis- 
take in  turning  from  tragedy  to  comedy,  from 
the  slums  of  New  York  to  the  beauty  of  the 
Italian  lakes.  Financially  it  was  a  profitable 
speculation ;  for  one  reader  of  As  It  Was  Writ- 
ten there  were  a  hundred  of  The  Cardinal's 
Snuff  Box,  His  later  manner  was  as  agreeable 
as  rich  food  and  sparkling  wine ;  his  books  were 
eagerly  devoured  and  speedily  forgotten.  But 
some  of  us  can  still  remember  the  thrill  in  read- 
ing that  story  of  double  personality  where  the 
lover  stabbed  his  betrothed  in  the  night,  and  was 
overwhelmed  with  horror  and  amazement  to 
find  her  body  in  the  morning.  **  Sydney 
Luska"  was  a  more  impressive  writer  than 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  273 

Henry  Harland — and  it  was  a  pity  that  he 
joined  the  marshmallow  school. 

Owen  Wister,  in  The  Virginian,  succeeded  in 
accomplishing  a  difficult  task.  He  produced  a 
*'best  seller"  that  continues  to  sell.  This  ad- 
mirable novel  was  the  American  literary  sensa- 
tion of  the  year  1902,  and  unlike  most  sensa- 
tions, has  not  been  forgotten.  Had  the  work 
contained  more  unity,  had  the  different  episodes 
been  more  skilfully  welded,  we  might  have  seen 
a  classic.  As  it  is  we  have  one  of  the  best  works 
of  American  fiction  of  the  twentieth  century, 
incomparably  better  than  anything  else  its  au- 
thor has  achieved,  though  his  other  books — 
especially  Philosophy  Four — are  not  without 
distinction. 

Mr.  Winston  Churchill  produced  Richard 
Carvel  in  1899,  and  his  steady  production  of 
'^C"  novels  that  have  followed  at  regular  inter- 
vals has  been  one  continuous  stream  of  popu- 
lar success.  He  is  far  more  a  representative  of 
modern  American  literature  than  he  is  a  leader 
of  it;  for  he  is  surely  as  remarkable  for  his 
limitations  as  for  his  virtues.    He  has  learned 


274  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

how  to  write  novels  by  writing  them ;  he  has  be- 
come a  finished  expert.  The  crudities  of  his 
earlier  work  have  been  ironed  out;  he  reports 
the  salient  features  of  American  social,  political 
and  religious  life.  His  characters  are  chosen, 
not  created;  they  are  chosen  to  represent  the 
ideas  that  Mr.  Churchill  wishes  to  convey 
to  his  readers.  An  honest  and  high-minded 
man,  with  the  unmistakable  temperament  of  a 
reformer,  Mr.  Churchill  seems  to  feel  the  re- 
sponsibility of  his  popularity.  As  he  sits  down 
at  his  desk  to  begin  a  new  novel,  he  has  the  com- 
forting and  also  terrifying  assurance  that  five 
hundred  thousand  people  will  read  and  discuss 
the  sentences  he  writes  in  solitude.  He  must  do 
something  to  improve  the  world.  Thus  his 
novels  are  becoming  more  and  more  didactic. 
His  finest  work  is  seen  in  Coniston  (1906),  and 
even  there  he  is  more  *' progressive"  than  ar- 
tistic. In  the  Inside  of  the  Cup  (1913)  he  de- 
voutly, reverently,  and  energetically  attacked 
the  modern  church;  in  A  Far  Country  (1915), 
which  comes  dangerously  near  the  limbo  of 
tedium,  he  attacked  the  modern  conditions  of 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  275 

commercial  life.  If  he  does  not  change  his 
tactics  he  may  share  the  fate  of  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward,  whose  so-called  novels  have  sunk  under 
an  accumulation  of  excess  baggage.  She  has 
too  much  freight  for  the  engine.  Mr. 
ChurchilPs  literary  style  lacks  distinction;  his 
characters  have  little  vitality;  his  pages  are 
lacking  in  humour  and  charm.  But  his  books 
are  discussions  of  subjects  that  interest  the  pub- 
lic at  the  moment  when  they  appear;  and  they 
are  an  accurate  mirror  of  public  sentiment. 
The  historian  of  the  future  could  obtain  a  pretty 
good  idea  of  *Hhe  state  of  the  public  mind'' 
from  1900  to  1915  by  reading  them. 

Strange  and  sad  that  he  should  have  political 
ambition — ^wish  to  be  a  member  of  the  legisla- 
ture— aspire  to  success  as  a  public  speaker. 
America  is  in  no  need  of  politicians  or  of  ora- 
tors ;  what  America  needs  is  artists.  It  is  more 
important  that  we  should  produce  a  great  novel- 
ist, a  great  musician,  a  great  poet,  a  great 
painter  than  it  is  for  any  one  to  be  elected  presi- 
dent. We  can  get  along  with  any  kind  of  a 
president ;  we  have  to ;  but  we  cannot  get  along 


276  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

without  artists.  Men  of  letters  and  great  ar- 
tists are  the  lights  of  a  nation;  they  are  what 
make  it  great;  they  are  what  give  it  a  place  in 
history.  Those  who  love  their  country  ought 
to  rejoice  more  at  the  appearance  of  an  original 
literary  genius  than  at  any  amount  of  battle- 
ships or  any  number  of  '* bumper''  crops.  Art 
is  more  important  than  politics,  because  it  is 
concerned  solely  with  those  things  that  are  eter- 
nal. One  day  John  Morley  met  Dante  Gabriel 
Eossetti  walking  on  the  street ;  it  was  the  very 
day  when  a  general  election  was  in  progress. 
To  the  consternation  of  Mr.  Morley,  Eossetti 
had  not  only  failed  to  vote,  but  he  was  unaware 
that  an  election  was  going  on.  Finally  Eossetti 
said,  ^*Well,  I  suppose  one  side  or  the  other  will 
get  in,  and  I  don't  suppose  it  makes  much  dif- 
ference which," — and  Mr.  Morley  now  says  that 
although  he  was  greatly  shocked  at  the  time,  he 
cannot  for  the  life  of  him  remember  which  did 
get  in,  seeming  to  prove  that  Eossetti  was  right. 
When  Napoleon  was  trampling  Germany  under 
foot,  Goethe  went  right  along  producing  novels, 
lyrics,  dramas ;  and  time  has  proved  the  correct- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  277 

ness  of  Ms  judgment.  He  could  not  take  Ms 
mind  off  really  important  tMngs  for  the  sake 
of  what  was  transitory. 

Mr.  ChurcMU  has  decided  literary  gifts.  He 
can  do  much  more  for  America  by  cultivating 
them  than  by  joimng  the  vast  army  of  political 
workers. 

Booth  Tarkington  has  exactly  what  Winston 
Churchill  has  not — ^humour,  charm,  lightness  of 
touch,  a  certain  winsomeness  of  style  as  perva- 
sive as  sunshine.  The  difference  between  the 
two  men  is  immediately  apparent  when  we  com- 
pare Mr.  Crewe's  Career  with  The  Gentleman 
from  Indiana.  If  we  could  make  an  amalgam 
out  of  Churchill,  Tarkington,  Harrison,  Herrick, 
and  Jack  London,  we  should  have  a  great  Amer- 
ican novelist ;  and  every  man  of  the  five  would 
make  a  distinct  and  valuable  contribution  to  the 
fusion.  Richard  Carvel  and  The  Gentleman 
from  Indiana  were  published  the  same  year, 
1899,  one  a  historical  romance,  in  the  correct 
fashion  of  the  moment,  the  other  a  realistic  por- 
trayal of  journalistic  and  political  life  in  a  small 
town.    Since    that    date    these    two    popular 


278  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

favourites  have  written  side  by  side,  uncon- 
sciously inviting  comparative  criticism.  In 
choosing  between  them  the  public  has  taken 
both. 

Such  novels  as  The  Conquest  of  Canaan 
(1905)  and  The  Guest  of  Quesnay  (1908)  are 
good  stories  well  told,  without  any  other  signi- 
ficance and  without  any  permanent  value.  It 
is  rather  interesting  that  in  the  year  1915  our 
two  novelists  should  each  have  produced  a  book 
that  is  intended  to  be,  and  is,  an  indictment  of 
modern  American  conditions  in  the  commercial 
life  of  big  cities.  Now  there  is  surely  more  hu- 
manity in  The  Turmoil  than  in  A  Far  Country, 
The  hero  of  the  latter  novel  is  a  mechanism 
merely,  a  representative  of  the  evil  tendencies 
condemned  by  the  author ;  whereas  in  The  Tur- 
moil, both  father  and  son  are  real  persons,  full 
of  individuality.  This  story  is  a  skilful  accu- 
sation of  the  American  love  of  bigness,  with  its 
concomitant  evils  of  smoke,  dirt,  noise,  especi- 
ally noise.  The  son  is  as  unlike  his  father  as  the 
sons  of  rich  Americans  are  likely  to  be :  in  the 
end  the  enormous  distance  between  them  is 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  279 

spanned  by  the  longest  bridge  in  the  universe — 
love.  The  son  is  so  much  like  the  author  of  the 
novel  that  we  hope  his  apparent  surrender  to 
big  business  at  the  end  does  not  mean  the  sur- 
render of  Mr.  Tarkington  to  the  demands  of  the 
reading  public.  Four  or  five  years  ago  I  feared 
that  the  brilliant  gifts  of  this  Hoosier  were  going 
to  be  degraded  to  the  production  of  the  girl- 
model  of  the  year — ^he  is  much  too  able  a  writer 
to  become  a  caterer  and  to  fall  under  the  temp- 
tation of  immediate  success.  As  the  German 
dramatist  remarked  when  he  wrote  his  first  play 
full  of  high  ideals,  **The  public  is  a  Hydra"; 
but  when  he  found  that  the  way  to  quick  returns 
was  to  please  the  public,  he  said  cynically,  *^The 
public  is  not  a  Hydra ;  it  is  a  milch  cow. ' '  Many 
of  our  novelists  have  discovered  this  truth ;  the 
author  gets  from  such  a  public  rich  payment 
and  bovine  appreciation;  as  the  cow  chews  its 
cud  in  perfect  contentment,  so  the  healthy  young 
girls  chew  their  gum  as  they  turn  the  pages  in 
sweet  delight. 

The  Turmoil  is  the  most  ambitious  and  on  the 
whole  the  best  of  Mr.  Tarkington  *s  novels ;  with- 


280  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

out  too  much  didacticism,  it  is  an  unsparing  and 
honest  diagnosis  of  the  great  American  disease. 
Its  author  has  proved  that  he  can  write  a  novel 
full  of  cerebration  without  losing  any  of  his 
charm.  In  spite  of  that  delightful  miniature 
historical  romance,  Monsieur  Beaucaire,  Mr. 
Tarkington  is  a  realist ;  he  hates  pretence,  sham, 
cant  in  just  the  way  a  typical  undergraduate 
hates  them ;  perhaps  if  he  did  not  hate  them  so 
much,  perhaps  if  his  sense  of  humour  were  not 
such  a  conservative  force  in  his  nature,  he  might 
attain  to  even  higher  ground.  In  his  study  of 
the  American  boy,  Penrod,  we  see  his  shrewd 
knowledge  of  life  and  his  original  mirth-sense. 
The  first  half  of  the  book  is  second-rate;  it 
seems  like  a  copy  of  some  original ;  but  the  sec- 
ond half  is  wonderful,  with  its  feeling  for  re- 
ality as  against  cant ;  and  those  two  nigger-boys 
are  worthy  of  Mark  Twain  at  his  best.  The 
sense  of  fact  is  the  dominant  quality  in  Booth 
Tarkington,  as  it  was  in  Mark  Twain.  It  ac- 
counts for  his  artistic  virtues,  and  for  his  lack 
of  range.  But  The  Turmoil  proves  that  he  is 
growing  in  spiritual  grace. 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  281 

Every  man  and  woman  over  fifty  ought  to 
read  Seventeen.  It  is  not  only  a  skilful  analysis 
of  adolescent  love,  it  is,  witli  all  its  side-splitting 
mirth,  a  tragedy.  No  mature  person  who  reads 
this  novel  will  ever  seriously  regret  his  *4ost 
youth"  or  wish  he  were  young  again. 

Perhaps  it  is  natural  that  New  York  news- 
papers should  have  their  jest  at  the  expense  of 
the  so-called  '^ Indiana  School."  For  my  part, 
I  have  for  this  group  of  writers  only  wonder 
and  praise ;  wonder,  that  in  the  particular  State 
of  Indiana — ^why  not  in  Illinois,  Ohio,  Kentucky, 
or  Missouri? — a  group  of  authors  should  ap- 
pear, each  of  whom  has  an  individual  excel- 
lence ;  praise,  because  their  actual  merit,  as  com- 
pared with  average  American  production,  is  so 
high.  Edward  Eggleston,  Maurice  Thompson, 
Lew  Wallace,  James  Whitcomb  Eiley,  Booth 
Tarkington,  Meredith  Nicholson,  George  Ade — 
these  are  all  justly  honoured  names.  And  un- 
like as  their  personalities  are,  their  work  has 
one  common  distinguishing  mark,  literary  hon- 
esty. Edward  Eggleston 's  Hoosier  School 
Master  (1871)  is  a  truthful  picture  of  life,  with 


282  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

scenes  and  characters  of  extraordinary  vitality. 
I  have  not  read  the  book  for  forty  years,  but  at 
this  moment  I  can  see  the  schoolmaster  taking 
off  his  coat  to  fight  the  husky  Bud  Means,  and 
the  general  surprise  at  the  spelling-match  when 
the  teacher  was  selected  instead  of  the  local 
champion — wasn't  his  name  Jeems  Phillips? 
Nor  shall  I  forget  my  delight  when  I  picked  up, 
fresh  from  the  press,  a  copy  of  Fables  in  Slang, 
and  wondered  who  the  author  was,  whether  or 
not  George  Ade  was  his  real  name,  and  if  so, 
how  it  was  pronounced?  Those  Fables  are 
acute  criticisms  of  American  life.  I  venture  to 
say  that  entirely  apart  from  their  humour,  they 
constitute  a  more  valuable  handbook  for  fathers 
and  mothers  who  are  worried  about  their  chil- 
dren— and  what  ones  are  not? — ^than  any  of  the 
common  moral  treatises  on  the  subject.  I  feel 
sure  that  these  Fables  would  be  better  for 
school-teachers  to  study  than  many  of  the  works 
on  pedagogy. 

The  flannel-shirted  novelist,  Jack  London,  has 
never  written  anything  nearly  so  good  as  his 
Call  of  the  Wild  (1903),  though  the  early  chap- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  283 

ters  of  The  Sea  Wolf  (1904)  are  brilliantly  exe- 
cuted. When  I  began  to  read  that  story,  the 
scenes  at  the  start,  the  tumbling  into  the  icy 
waters  of  the  bay,  the  helplessness  of  the  critic 
of  Poe's  literary  style  in  the  presence  of  the 
Wolf,  I  thought  I  was  at  last  reading  the  great 
American  novel — ^but  when  I  came  to  the  love 
scenes  and  the  seal  scenes,  then  I  knew  I  was 
not.  During  the  great  and  fleeting  popularity 
of  the  *' red-blood"  school,  an  intense  love  of 
which  is  a  sure  indication  of  effeminacy.  Jack 
London  stood  high  in  favour.  Such  phrases  as 
*'red  corpuscles''  (whatever  that  may  mean), 
"male  ardour,"  "sheer  brutality,"  were  quite 
in  fashion ;  indeed  they  were  the  dying  kicks  of 
a  pseudo-romanticism — instead  of  being  a  sign 
of  vitality,  they  were  evidences  of  the  last  con- 
vulsion. To  read  a  book  like  White  Fang  is  to 
feel  like  a  cannibal,  crunching  bones  and  bolting 
blood.  Yet  Jack  London  is  a  man  of  letters; 
he  has  the  true  gift  of  style,  so  rare  and  so  un- 
mistakable; if  he  would  forget  his  social  and 
political  creed,  and  lower  his  voice,  he  might 
achieve  another  masterpiece.    Meanwhile  let  us 


284  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

be  grateful  for  The  Call  of  the  Wild,  a  story  that 
no  other  man  could  have  written. 

Is  there  a  living  writer  more  unlike  Jack  Lon- 
don than  Eobert  Herrick?  One  born  at  San 
Francisco,  the  other  at  Cambridge — one  a  tramp 
by  instinct  and  choice,  the  other  a  Harvard 
graduate  and  college  professor.  The  last  thing 
to  say  of  Mr.  Herrick 's  art  would  be  that  it 
lacked  virility ;  but  its  virility  is  never  forced  on 
the  reader,  just  as  its  author  never  shouts  in 
public.  His  strength  is  a  subdued  strength; 
the  virtues  of  his  literary  style  are  quiet;  his 
literary  attitude  is  ironical — of  which  the  ad- 
vertisement of  fire-proof  construction  in  the 
midst  of  the  devouring  flames  is  an  excellent 
illustration.  I  sometimes  think  the  best  thing 
he  has  written  is  the  short  story  called  The  Pro- 
fessor's Opportunity.  It  is  a  work  of  pes- 
simism, a  remorseless  study  of  the  sordid  side 
of  academical  life,  of  the  meanness  of  teaching, 
of  the  relations  between  the  Assistant  Profes- 
sor who  cannot  live  on  his  salary  and  the  college 
President  who  is  a  liar — ^not  a  natural  liar,  but 
made  perfect  in  deceit  through  the  exigencies  of 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  285 

his  office.  The  picture  is  not  a  pleasant  one, 
and  the  emphasis  is  harsh,  but  those  who  read 
[Mr.  Herrick's  novels  for  pleasure  are  bound  to 
be  disappointed.    Wormwood,  wormwood. 

Every  author  has  a  right  to  surprise  us  by- 
producing  something  'different";  but  what  did 
Mr.  Herrick  mean  by  writing  His  Great  Adven- 
ture? This  is  a  work  worthy  of  the  late  Mrs. 
E.  D.  E.  N.  Southworth. 

Of  all  American  authors  who  have  made  their 
debut  in  the  twentieth  century,  I  regard  Mr. 
Henry  Sydnor  Harrison  as  the  most  promising. 
In  January,  1911,  no  one  had  ever  heard  of 
him ;  by  December  everybody  was  talking  about 
him.  One  novel,  Queed,  made  the  difference 
between  obscurity  and  fame.  I  think  Queed 
deserved  all  its  success.  It  is  a  real  novel,  with 
a  real  plot,  and  real  characters.  The  construc- 
tion, the  weakest  point  in  most  contemporary 
works  of  fiction,  is  particularly  brilliant ;  from 
the  first  to  the  final  bark  of  the  pleasure-dog 
the  story  develops  with  naturalness.  The  only 
thing  that  seems  like  artifice  is  the  too  patent 
opposition  of  the  clever  young  politician  and  the 


286  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

despised  pedant ;  one  increases  in  exact  propor- 
tion to  the  other's  decrease,  so  that  at  a  certain 
moment  they  pass  each  other.  But  the  hero  is 
quite  original  in  modern  fiction,  as  original  as 
Browning's  Grammarian  in  poetry;  all  readers 
are  stimulated  by  his  spiritual  advance. 

The  next  book,  V.  V/s  Eyes  (1913),  despite  its 
unpromising  title,  indicated  no  falling  off.  The 
conquest  of  a  woman  of  the  world  by  a  Chris- 
tian hero  is  not  unknown  in  fiction,  and  was  a 
favourite  device  in  the  novels  of  Dostoevski ;  it 
has  been  recently  tried  with  success  by  Anne 
Sedgwick  in  The  Encounter;  its  piquancy 
seemed  to  be  felt  by  Bernard  Shaw  in  Androcles 
and  the  Lion,  The  contrast  has  every  dramatic 
possibility,  and  they  are  made  the  most  of  by 
Mr.  Harrison.  But  apart  from  the  main  theme, 
this  novel  abounds  in  scenes  of  the  liveliest  hu- 
mour and  charm ;  scenes  equalled  for  their  truth 
in  humorous  details  only  by  William  De  Mor- 
gan. Yet  the  real  power  of  the  book  lies  in 
its  artistic  handling  of  a  great  driving  moral 
idea — the  idea  of  Christian  unselfishness,  of 
the  old  paradox  of  saving  one's  life  by  losing 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  287 

it.  The  way  in  which  countless  little  details  are 
accumulated,  every  one  of  which  aids  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  central  thought  of  the  book, 
is  worthy  of  high  praise.  Mr.  Harrison  is 
something  more  than  a  clever  novelist ;  he  is  a 
valuable  ally  of  the  angels. 

His  third  novel,  Angela's  Business  (1915),  is 
distinctly  inferior  to  its  predecessors;  inferior 
in  construction,  in  characterisation,  in  human 
interest.  It  is  too  timely  to  wear  the  marks  of 
permanence ;  and  it  completely  lacks  the  fresh- 
ness, the  spontaneous  charm  of  Queed,  That 
novel  was  written  apparently  because  the  au- 
thor could  not  hold  on  to  it  any  longer ;  in  writ- 
ing it,  he  simply  released  something  from  his 
soul.  Now,  Angela's  Business  is  the  work  of  a 
professional  novelist,  from  whom  a  new  book  is 
due;  he  selects  his  subject,  and  proceeds  to 
cover  white  paper.  There  are,  however,  two 
notable  features  of  this  story  which  make  me 
glad  it  was  published ;  first,  the  leading  lady  is 
not  the  heroine.  Angela  deceives  not  only  her 
family,  her  acquaintances,  but  what  is  much 
more   difficult,   she   deceives   the    reader.    Of 


288  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

course  it  is  a  favourite  device  of  Mr.  Harrison 
to  present  a  character  to  his  readers  with  a 
complimentary  introduction,  only  to  have  the 
stuff  depreciate  on  our  hands ;  there  is  no  sud- 
den shock  of  disappointment  or  amazement, 
there  is  simply  the  slow  change  in  our  attitude 
from  admiration  to  contempt — caused  by  a 
thousand  details  rather  than  by  one  catastrophe 
as  in  typical  melodrama.  The  transformation 
is  accomplished  in  a  consummate  manner. 
After  reading  the  first  chapter,  no  one  would  be- 
lieve that  this  girl  would  or  could  develop  as 
she  does ;  yet  at  the  end  of  the  book  both  natural 
and  moral  values  are  correct. 

The  woman  question — ^which  no  man  can  es- 
cape nowadays — is  from  one  point  of  view 
finally  disposed  of  here ;  which  makes  me  regard 
Angela's  Business  as  the  best  contribution  to 
the  whole  question  of  feminism  that  I  have  seen 
in  any  work  of  fiction.  It  is  much  easier  to 
write  about  woman  than  about  woman-suffrage 
— that  is,  easier  for  a  poet  or  a  novelist;  for 
woman-suffrage  is  not  naturally  malleable  for 
purposes  of  art,  while  woman  is  and  always  has 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  289 

been  an  ideal  subject.  Mr.  Harrison  settles  the 
question  not  from  the  point  of  view  of  feminism, 
but  femininity ;  he  proves  to  us  that  ^* womanly" 
women  are  so,  not  because  of  their  occupation 
or  because  of  their  opinions,  but  because  of 
themselves.  An  ardent  suffragette  may  be  full 
of  delicate  charm;  and  a  frivolous  woman  may 
lack  every  vestige  of  attractive  force.  This 
ought  to  be  axiomatic,  but  is  not;  Mr.  Harri- 
son's solution  of  the  problem  is  not  only  the 
only  correct  one,  but  one  that  pros  and  antis 
should  study  with  attention.  As  to  whether  or 
not  women  should  have  the  ballot,  Mr.  Harrison 
leaves  that  question  where  he  found  it.  His 
moral  is  that  women  need  not  fear  to  have  opin- 
ions because  of  the  danger  of  losing  their  charm 
— since  many  have  neither  opinions  nor  charm. 

I  have  not  read  any  book  by  Mr.  Harrison 
without  immediately  wishing  for  another.  He 
has  won  already  an  enviable  place  in  contem- 
porary literature,  and  of  all  our  young  writers, 
he  seems  to  have  the  largest  natural  endow- 
ment. 

Of  our  American  woman  novelists,  Gertrude 


290  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Atherton  and  Mary  Wilkins  (Freeman)  have 
been  before  the  public  for  about  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  and  we  know  something  of  their  range, 
force,  and  quality.  Mary  Wilkins  has  shown 
better  judgment  than  Mrs.  Atherton  in  sticking 
closely  to  a  certain  field;  narrowing  her  scope, 
while  gaining  in  intensity.  If  one  picks  out 
almost  at  random  from  Mrs.  Atherton 's  long 
list  of  publications  Senator  North  (1900),  The 
Conqueror  (1902)  and  Tower  of  Ivory  (1910), 
one  sees  at  a  glance  the  almost  impossible  space 
that  this  interesting  and  ambitious  writer  has 
attempted  to  cover.  Her  personality  is  more 
interesting  than  her  novels;  I  find  her  *' views" 
and  her  pungent  letters  to  the  newspapers  more 
exciting  reading  than  her  formal  works.  She 
would  perhaps  make  a  deeper  impression  on 
contemporary  literature  if  her  novels  hit  the 
same  mark  more  often,  if  she  were  identified  in 
the  public  mind  with  some  particular  literary 
manner,  some  artistic  point  of  view — consider 
the  success  of  Eden  Phillpotts,  without  mem- 
tioning  an  original  genius  like  Thomas  Hardy! 
Nor  can  I  agree  with  Mrs.  Atherton  in  her 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  291 

spirited  attacks  on  Mr.  Howells  and  the  Ameri- 
can novel  in  general;  for  surely  there  is  more 
actual  truth  in  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham  than 
in  Tower  of  Ivory, 

Many  years  ago  I  was  invited  to  a  literary 
''tea"  in  Boston,  which  confirmed  my  worst 
fears.  Fourth  and  fifth  class  writers  were 
present,  each  surrounded  by  satellites;  other 
persons,  of  more  ambition  than  capacity  and 
more  conceit  than  either,  appeared  in  strange 
garments  and  talked  in  accents  not  of  this  world 
— one  young  man,  I  remember,  wore  a  Greek 
gown!  As  George  Moore  would  say,  all  that 
an  ordinary  man  could  do  on  beholding  such  a 
spectacle  would  be  to  shout  Great  God!  and 
leave  for  some  human  destination.  I  was  about 
to  do  this,  when  I  saw  in  a  comer  a  quiet,  nor- 
mal young  woman,  who  was  talking  with  a  na- 
tural expression  on  her  face.  I  enquired,  and 
was  told,  ''Oh,  that's  Mary  Wilkins,''  as  though 
she  were  the  janitress.  It  was  indeed  Mary 
Wilkins;  incomparably  the  most  distinguished 
person  in  the  room,  looking  as  true  to  life  as  one 
of  her  New  England  characters. 


292  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

Every  line  in  the  books  of  Miss  Wilkins  reads 
as  though  it  had  come  out  of  the  author's  actual 
experience.  She  is  primarily  truthful,  and 
never  prepares  an  artificial  effect — ^never  sacri- 
fices reality  for  sensation.  Her  novels  are  his- 
tories ;  histories  of  New  England  localities  and 
of  New  England  people.  Such  books  as  Pern- 
broke  (1894),  The  Portion  of  Labor  (1901),  and 
\  The  Shoulders  of  Atlas  (1908)  are  uncompro- 
misingly faithful  to  fact.  The  last-named  is 
indeed  an  experimental  novel  in  the  manner  of 
:  Zola;  just  as  honest,  just  as  conscientious,  just 
]  as  unflinching  as  he.  Only,  while  she  repre- 
sents the  filth  and  sordidness  of  poverty,  she 
also  represents  the  love  that  dignifies  and  en- 
nobles it.  Eeligious  aspiration  and  family  love 
are  exactly  as  ^*true  to  life"  as  the  dirt  on  a 
man's  boots — just  as  the  unspeakable  affection 
that  exists  between  a  man  and  a  woman  who 
have  been  married  forty  years,  strengthened 
every  day  by  the  sight  of  each  other's  grey 
hairs,  is  as  much  of  a  fact  as  the  animal  passion 
that  draws  together  young  lovers.  One  cannot 
emphasise  too  strongly  just  now  that  a  picture 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  293 

of  life  which  is  all  sordidness  is  not  a  true  pic- 
ture; Gorki,  for  example,  represents  workers 
coming  out  of  a  factory  with  only  one  expres- 
sion on  every  face,  the  sodden  despair  of  hope- 
less weariness.  But  if  one  will  stand  at  the 
gates  of  any  factory  in  the  world  when  the 
workers  are  released,  he  will  see  that  Gorki  is 
not  telling  the  truth;  they  do  not  all  have  that 
expression,  or  look  that  way.  There  is  plenty 
of  misery  in  evidence ;  but  many  of  the  men  and 
women  act  like  boys  and  girls  just  let  out  of 
school;  they  are  laughing,  joking,  and  full  of 
mirth.  I  request  any  fair-minded  critic  to 
read  Gorki's  Mother  and  Miss  Wilkins's  The 
Shoulders  of  Atlas  consecutively,  and  then  to 
declare  which  of  the  two  novels  is  more  true  to 
humanity  and  to  the  facts  of  human  existence. 

At  this  moment  Edith  Wharton  stands  by 
common  consent  at  the  head  of  all  living  Amer- 
ican women  who  write  books ;  indeed  there  are 
many  who  say  she  is  our  foremost  novelist. 
From  this  decision,  handed  down  constantly  in 
our  magazines  and  reviews,  I  find  myself  forced 
to  dissent.    She  has  produced  only  one  master- 


294  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

piece,  Ethan  Frome  (1911),  giving  only  one 
aspect  of  country  life,  but  presenting  that  in  a 
wonderful  technique.  Yet  even  in  this  story  I 
am  unconvinced,  for  I  am  certain  that  the  lov- 
ers never  would  have  taken  that  coast  to  perdi- 
tion; in  real  life  they  would  have  thought  about 
it,  as  we  all  think  of  jumping  off  high  places — 
without  actually  jumping.  The  story  is,  how- 
ever, a  grey  masterpiece,  a  little  group  of  mis- 
erable people  living  forever  under  a  gunmetal 
sky. 

Although  The  Valley  of  Decision  (1902)  at- 
tracted considerable  attention,  it  was  not  until 
the  appearance  of  The  House  of  Mirth  (1905) 
that  Mrs.  Wharton's  popularity  became  general. 
Unlike  most  of  her  stories,  no  unusual  intel- 
ligence is  required  to  understand  or  to  appre- 
ciate The  House  of  Mirth;  and  no  unusual  in- 
telligence was  required  to  write  it.  A  tale  of 
exaggerated  intensity,  ending  in  melodrama. 
The  two  books  that  followed  in  1907,  Madame 
de  Treymes  and  The  Fruit  of  the  Tree,  illus- 
trate the  author's  versatility;  the  former  has 
great  dignity,  the  latter  none  whatever.    In- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  295 

deed  The  Fruit  of  the  Tree  is  a  failure,  both 
artistically  and  morally;  we  are  evidently  meant 
to  sympathise  with  the  second  wife,  which  is 
impossible,  because  she  is  a  murderer.  I  do 
not  refer  to  her  overt  act  of  murder  when  Bessy 
was  helpless,  for  there  it  is  possible  to  admire 
her  courage  in  taking  the  responsibility;  no,  I 
mean  her  reference  to  the  wild  horse  in  Bessy's 
presence;  the  moment  she  mentions  that  dan- 
gerous beast,  she  is  guilty  of  murder. 

Next  to  Ethan  Frome,  I  think  Mrs.  Wharton's 
best  novel  is  The  Reef  (1912) ;  it  has  an  excel- 
lent plot,  and  what  is  rare  in  her  books,  none  of 
the  characters  is  overdrawn.  As  for  The  Cus- 
tom of  the  Country  (1914),  as  a  work  of  satire  it 
is  powerful,  though  immensely  exaggerated; 
and  the  scorn  exhibited  for  American  social 
ideals  and  American  social  life  shows  exceed- 
ing bitterness.  Mrs.  Wharton  is  a  good  hater; 
if  her  sense  of  humour  and  her  powers  of  hu- 
man sympathy  were  developed  in  like  measure 
with  her  capacity  for  hate,  disgust,  and  irony, 
what  a  novelist  she  would  be !  She  has  all  the 
intellectual  gifts,  all  the  purely  mental  endow- 


296  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

ment,  without  any  spiritual  force ;  there  is  from 
the  first  page  to  the  last  of  all  her  novels  that 
I  have  read  no  whisper  of  divine  influence; 
positively  no  recognition  of  anything  unseen 
and  eternal;  she  knows  you  not,  ye  heavenly 
powers!  I  am  not  scolding  her  for  this,  I  am 
merely  mentioning  it.  Suppose  she  had  even  a 
touch  of  the  spirituality  and  loving  sympathy 
of  Dostoevski,  what  a  difference  it  would  make 
in  the  manner  of  her  work !  Her  range  is  lim- 
ited by  the  boundaries  of  this  world. 

Apart  from  that  vital  loss  in  all  her  work,  I 
find  The  Custom  of  the  Country  too  overdrawn 
to  be  either  a  good  novel  or  a  really  effective 
satire.  If  her  purpose  was  to  contrast  Ameri- 
can with  foreign  sentiment,  one  has  only  to  re- 
member Henry  James's  American,  where  the 
same  task  is  accomplished  in  a  more  powerful 
way.  After  finishing  The  Custom  of  the  Coun- 
try, one  really  ought  to  read  The  American;  I 
am  sure  that  the  contrast  would  be  instruc- 
tive. 

Anne  Sedgwick  (Mrs.  de  Selincourt)  is  a 
novelist  who  is  attracting  more  thoughtful  at- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  297 

tention  every  year,  and  of  whom  Americans  are 
becoming  increasingly  prond.  She  has  had 
only  one  popular  success,  Tante  (1911),  a  novel 
of  strong  dramatic  quality,  but  decidedly  in- 
ferior to  A  Fountain  Sealed  (1907).  The  two 
books  have  one  thing  in  common,  disillusion. 
What  makes  this  writer  so  fond  of  the  study  of 
vampires?  Tante  is  an  artistic  vampire;  the 
young  philanthropist  is  a  moral  vampire. 
What  power  of  selfishness  is  displayed,  what 
cruelty,  what  misconception  of  one's  place  in 
the  universe!  And  what  calm,  intellectual  joy 
Miss  Sedgwick  takes  in  very  gradually  stripping 
these  goddesses !  Where  did  she  learn  this  par- 
ticular art?  who  taught  her  such  a  lesson  of 
bitterness? 

In  her  novel  The  Encounter  (1914)  we  have 
the  philosopher  Nietzsche  as  one  of  the  leading 
characters.  This  extraordinary  book  has  an 
absolutely  negligible  plot,  almost  no  plot  at  all — 
indeed  it  is  not  a  story,  it  is  a  problem.  And 
the  interest  of  the  problem  lies  not  at  all  in  the 
incidents  or  in  the  course  of  events,  but  in  the 
clash  of  character  on  character — really  in  the 


298  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

clash  of  moral  ideals.  Only  the  other  day  a 
clever  American  woman  was  asked  what  stand 
she  took  on  the  American  sale-of -munitions  to 
the  Allies;  and  she  replied  sadly,  '*I  don't  know 
where  I  stand  on  any  question."  There  are 
times  when  all  the  great  questions  of  life  seem 
to  leave  honest  persons  in  mere  bewilderment ; 
happy  are  those  who  have  no  trouble  in  making 
up  their  minds  I  The  various  kinds  of  Anschau- 
ungen  are  illustrated  in  The  Encounter  by  pow- 
erful personalities,  whom  the  young  girl  actu- 
ally encounters.  Indeed,  there  are  six  char- 
acters in  this  story,  every  one  of  whom  is  going 
to  impress  the  reader— impress  him  so  deeply 
that  he  only  half -misses  the  real  absence  of  nar- 
rative. These  are  the  young  American  girl 
herself,  whose  mind  has  already  received  so 
many  impressions  that  it  is  just  possible  she 
may  be  interested  by  a  new  one,  but  not  possible 
that  any  new  one  could  produce  shock;  her 
mother,  a  quite  new  person  in  modem  fiction, 
and  yet  strikingly  real,  with  enormous  power 
of  observation  veiled  by  a  mask  of  sleepy  in- 
difference— one  feels  sure  that  no  individual  has 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  299 

ever  penetrated  to  the  quiet  depths  of  this  wo- 
man's soul ;  then  there  is  the  sentimental  Italian 
devotee;  Nietzsche  himself,  who  is  thought  to 
be  a  superman,  but  who  is  really  a  great  baby ; 
Graf  von  Liidenstein,  with  no  philosophy  except 
sensuality,  knowing  exactly  what  he  wants,  and 
without  scruples,  no  Superman,  but  certainly  a 
dangerous  Subman ;  much  more  apt  to  live  up  to 
his  desires  than  Christians  are  to  live  up  to 
their  principles,  or  philosophers  to  their  ideals ; 
and  finally  the  cripple,  Conrad  Sachs,  who  rep- 
resents without  one  word  of  cant,  a  living  Chris- 
tian faith  translated  into  action.  Sachs  tri- 
umphs over  the  other  two  men,  over  the  original 
contempt  of  the  girl;  indeed  his  conversations 
with  the  girl  will  make  it  impossible  for  any 
thoughtful  reader  to  pass  them  lightly.  They 
reach  the  depths  of  spiritual  experiences.  Con- 
rad has  charity  for  all,  and  immense  admiration 
for  Ludwig  (Nietzsche) ;  indeed,  he  says  that 
Ludwig  is  really  a  Christian  without  knowing  it, 
and  that  at  any  moment  the  truth  may  be  re- 
vealed to  him.  For  Ludwig  insists  that 
Strength  is  the  highest  good;  Conrad  merely 


300  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

makes  an  inversion,  saying  that  Goodness  is 
the  highest  strength. 

This  is  a  novel  where  every  page  betrays 
cerebration;  one  reads  it  with  happy  atten- 
tion. And  one  rises  from  it  convinced  that  the 
highest  wisdom  in  life  is  not  of  the  head,  but 
of  the  heart.  Seldom  do  we  find  a  writer  who 
combines  such  keen  intellectual  power  with  such 
spiritual  sweetness. 

Dorothy  Canfield  (Mrs.  J.  E.  Fisher),  who 
took  her  doctor's  degree  at  Columbia  in  *^01d 
French,''  made  a  happy  substitution  in  chang- 
ing her  investigation  from  linguistics  to  Ameri- 
can men  and  women  of  the  twentieth  century. 
In  The  Squirrel  Cage  (1912)  she  showed  in  a 
straightforward  narrative  exactly  how  our  mod- 
ern girls  are  systematically  prepared  for  pro- 
fessional invalidism,  for  a  long  career  of  nerv- 
ous prostration;  in  Hillsboro  People  (1915)  she 
very  nearly  proved  the  paradox  that  you  can 
learn  more  about  human  nature  in  a  Vermont 
village  than  in  New  York  City.  This  book  also 
exhibited  her  skill  in  the  short  story.  It  is  a 
series  of  tales,  with  lyrical  intermissions  by 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  301 

Sarah  Cleghorn,  singing  like  linnets  in  the 
pauses  of  the  wind.  In  her  best  and  latest 
novel,  The  Bent  Twig,  solidly  thoughtful  and 
continuously  interesting,  we  have  another  sound 
work  of  art.  This  time  the  life  and  ideals  of  a 
Middle- West  State  university  are  accurately, 
unsparingly,  and  affectionately  portrayed. 
Dorothy  Canfield  is  a  notable  addition  to  mod- 
ern novelists,  and  each  of  her  books  marks  a 
steady  advance.  I  never  prophesy,  for  prophe- 
cies are  futile;  but  when  I  finished  The  Bent 
Twig,  my  attitude  toward  the  author  was  and  is 
now  best  described  by  the  word  Faith. 


CHAPTER  XI 

HENRY   JAMES 

The  adjective  "Victorian" — ^the  education  of  Henry  James 
— his  obscurity — his  model  and  his  influence — The  Ameri- 
can— Daisy  Miller — the  author's  command  of  passion — a 
specialist — ^his  verbose  reticence — his  uninteresting  char- 
acters— his  ghost-story — the  beauty  of  his  style. 

The  word  '' Victorian"  as  applied  to  literary 
standards  seems  to  have  become  little  more 
than  a  contemptuous  epithet;  and  there  is  in 
fact  only  one  designation  more  insulting,  which 
the  reader  at  once  correctly  guesses  to  be  **  mid- 
Victorian."  This  twentieth-century  attitude 
is  rather  interesting  when  we  remember  that 
there  is  not  at  this  moment  a  single  writer  of 
either  prose  or  verse  in  English  who  can  com- 
pare in  excellence  with  a  half-dozen  mid- Vic- 
torians that  any  book-lover  can  name. 

Henry  James  was  born  on  the  fifteenth  of 
April,  1843,  and  died  at  his  lodgings  in  Chelsea 
on  the  twenty-eighth  of  February,  1916.  As 
literary  epochs  go,  it  is  a  far  cry  to  1843 ;  and 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  303 

to  Americans  who  love  their  country,  and  who 
hope  to  see  it  take  a  position  in  the  intellectual 
advance  of  humanity,  it  is  humiliating  not  to 
be  able  to  mention  a  single  American  prose 
writer  born  since  that  date  who  is  the  equal  of 
the  man  we  have  lost.  Of  the  splendid  Ameri- 
can triumvirate  who  lived  to  see  the  new  cen- 
tury, Mark  Twain,  W.  D.  Howells,  and  Henry 
James,  only  one  is  left,  and  he  will  be  eighty 
years  old  on  the  first  of  next  March.  I  could 
wish  there  were  some  form  of  literary  **  pre- 
paredness'' that  would  insure  the  United  States 
a  place  among  world  powers. 

Henry  James  was  metropolitan,  cosmopoli- 
tan, international;  and  he,  with  that  all  but  in- 
fallible correctness  of  taste  so  characteristic 
of  his  genius,  selected  for  his  birthplace  the  big 
town  where  all  roads  of  the  world  meet — New 
York;  and  for  his  father  a  man  who  was  novel- 
ist, philosopher,  theologian,  and  who,  like 
Sainte-Beuve,  passed  through  many  intellectual 
and  religious  phases;  regarding  both  life  and 
death  from  a  wide  variety  of  mental  stations, 
possibly  with  the  hope  of  getting  ultimately  a 


304  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

correct  parallax.  Henry  and  his  great  brother 
William  unconsciously  received  at  tender  age  a 
prophetic  impulse ;  for  Emerson  laid  his  hands 
on  the  future  philosopher,  and  Thackeray 
petted  the  future  novelist.  Each  had  in  ma- 
turity something  of  the  manner  commonly  as- 
sociated with  the  other's  profession;  William 
succeeded  in  making  the  reading  of  metaphys- 
ics easy,  while  Henry  made  novel-reading  diffi- 
cult. 

Henry's  education,  like  that  of  John  Mill  and 
Eobert  Browning,  was  largely  under  the  per- 
sonal supervision  of  his  father;  he  was  saved 
from  the  waste  and  loss  of  our  conventional 
school  system,  receiving  the  incomparable  ad- 
vantages of  Europe.  To  be  sure,  Harvard  has 
the  right  to  add  his  name  to  her  illustrious  roll, 
for  he  was  a  student  at  the  Law  School  in  the 
sixties.  His  father  never  seemed  to  trouble 
himself  as  to  what  Henry  should  **do'';  like 
Goethe,  he  perhaps  thought  that  it  was  greater 
to  be  than  to  do.  No  one  could  have  looked  at 
the  face  of  Henry  James  when  he  was  eighteen, 
and  have  felt  anything  akin  to  anxiety;  it  was 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  305 

a  face  that  positively  shone  with  intellectual 
beauty  and  nobility  of  spirit. 

From  first  to  last  he  seems  to  have  followed 
what  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  best  things  in  life ; 
from  the  year  1869  he  resided  chiefly  in  Europe, 
simply  because  he  found  there  a  more  congenial 
mental  environment,  a  sharper  spur  to  artistic 
achievement.  He  would  undoubtedly  never 
have  transferred  his  citizenship  to  England, 
if  it  had  not  been  that  England  was  in  sore  dis- 
tress; the  motive  guiding  this  transfer  was 
sheerly  noble.  Eightly  or  wrongly,  he  believed 
with  all  the  strength  of  his  mind  in  the  British 
cause,  yet  this  did  not  destroy  his  keen  sense  of 
moral  values,  for  in  a  letter  to  the  writer,  dated 
December  15,  1914,  he  said,  **  Under  this  huge 
nightmare,  the  unprecedented  oppression  or 
obsession  of  our  public  consciousness  here, 
pleasure  (save  of  the  grim  sort  that  premoni- 
tions of  Victory,  terrifically  paid  for,  bring)  is 
very  hard  to  take  and  very  questionable  even  to 
desire."  Since  there  was  considerable  unfav- 
ourable American  journalistic  comment  on  his 
change  of  allegiance,  I  do  not  think  it  imperti- 


306  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

nent  to  quote  a  letter  from  an  English  novelist : 
**He  was  a  great  personality  in  London,  and 
everybody  who  knew  him  seemed  to  have  felt  his 
personal  note,  and  of  course  in  England  we  were 
so  immensely  touched  at  his  becoming  one  of 
us  in  the  darkest  time  our  country  has  known 
for  centuries.  It  was  the  most  supreme  proof 
he  could  give  us  of  his  sympathy  and  affection. 
But  his  own  country  must  not  for  a  moment 
think  that  he  forgot  it,  for  he  didn't ;  and  he  left 
directions,  that  his  ashes,  after  cremation,  were 
to  be  taken  back  to  it.  There  was  much  talk 
of  a  service  in  "Westminster  Abbey,  the  Prime 
Minister  approved  of  it  and  the  Dean  was  quite 
willing  there  should  be  one,  providing  the  Chap- 
ter consented  (which  was  a  matter  of  course). 
But  Mrs.  William  James,  very  wisely  I  think, 
refused  all  idea  of  it.  The  simpler  service  in 
the  little  church  not  a  stone's  throw  from  his 
flat,  was  more  in  accord  with  his  life,  she  said, 
— ^better  befitted  a  New  Englander.  So  thus  it 
was;  and  a  most  beautiful  and  dignified  fare- 
w;ell  took  place  in  the  little  church  that  is  now 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  307 

centuries  old  and  will  now  be  forever  identified 
with  him.'' 

The  latest  thing  from  his  pen  is  his  beautiful 
introduction  to  the  posthumous  letters  of  that 
overrated  poet  but  not  overrated  man,  Eupert 
Brooke.  It  is  charming  to  see,  as  in  the  case 
of  Gray  and  Bonstetten,  the  older  man  of  letters 
captivated  by  the  bright,  eager  youth.  In  this 
introduction,  as  in  everything  that  he  wrote, 
Henry  James  did  his  best.  Never  was  there 
perhaps  a  writer  of  higher  artistic  purpose. 
When  The  Ring  and  the  Booh  appeared,  a  re-  ( 
viewer  remarked  that  Browning  had  done  less 
to  conciliate  and  more  to  influence  the  public 
than  any  of  his  contemporaries.  The  first  of 
these  propositions  is  certainly  true  of  Henry 
James.  So  far  as  I  know,  he  never  betrayed 
any  scorn  for  public  opinion ;  he  simply  was  not 
interested.  He  appealed  always  to  the  select 
few,  to  patient  readers  of  trained  perception, 
and  his  natural  reward  was  that  he  had  the  fol- 
lowers that  every  writer  would  be  happy  to  ^ 
claim.    He  never  had  a  large  public,  but  he  en- 


308  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

joyed  a  great  fame.  The  target  at  whicli  he 
aimed  was  so  difficult  that  no  wonder  he  fre- 
quently missed;  but  apparently  he  preferred 
even  to  miss  rather  than  to  shoot  at  something 
obviously  easy.  He  took  the  credit,  and  let  the 
cash  go. 

Excess  of  amenity  will  surely  give  a  clever 
writer  an  immensely  wide  circle  of  readers,  and 
yet  the  highest  fame  often  comes  to  authors — 
as  to  statesmen — who  defy  the  public.  Lack 
of  amenity  may  indicate  a  certain  kind  of  cour- 
age, and  while  professional  politicians  are  slow 
to  learn  it,  the  public  really  loves  a  display  of 
courage.  Browning  is  not  always  clear,  but  he 
is  in  the  front  rank  of  English  poets;  Haupt- 
mann's  vague  Sunken  Bell  made  him  a  world 
figure;  Maeterlinck  is  obscure,  but  prodigi- 
ously admired ;  Ibsen  is  commonly  regarded  as 
the  greatest  of  modern  dramatists,  and  The 
Master  Builder  as  a  great  play,  yet  no  one  can 
successfully  demonstrate  what  it  means.  Do 
we  not  often  reserve  our  highest  tribute  to  the 
writers  who  refuse  to  help  us  overmuch?  Per- 
haps if  this  is  true,  the  reason  lies  in  the  fact 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  309 

that  while  it  is  pleasant  to  have  our  curiosity 
satisfied,  there  is  one  thing  more  stimulating 
— to  have  it  aroused.  An  editorial  writer  on 
Henry  James  in  The  Christian  Science  Monitor 
summed  the  matter  up  rather  neatly  in  one 
short  sentence :  **If  he  was  not  simple,  neither 
were  his  times."  He  attempted  to  catch  shades 
of  meaning  that  are  eternally  elusive,  that  are 
perhaps  quite  beyond  the  reach  of  language,  or, 
at  all  events,  the  English  language : 

Thoughts  hardly  to  be  packed 
Into  a  narrow  act, 
Fancies  that  broke  through  language  and  escaped. 

Two  common  accusations — that  he  spent  his 
time  dealing  in  trivialities,  and  that  **  nobody 
reads  him" — he  admitted  with  cheerfulness, 
only  he  would  have  qualified  the  first  by  saying 
that  he  dealt  in  what  seemed  on  a  superficial 
glance  to  be  trivialities.  Mr.  St.  John  Ervine 
— a  novelist  of  marked  talent — exclaimed,  **I 
cannot  read  the  works  of  Henry  James.  He 
seems  to  me  to  spend  half  a  lifetime  in  saying 
*Boo !'  to  a  goose."    But  our  author  forestalled 


310  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

this  objection  long  ago.  So  far  as  lie  had  a 
model,  it  was  the  Eussian  novelist  Turgenev, 
and  it  is  clear  that  he  highly  esteemed  Tur- 
genev's  praise.  In  his  essay  on  Turgenev  in 
Partial  Portraits,  he  frankly  confesses  that  the 
Eussian  was  unable  to  read  most  of  his  produc- 
tions. '*As  regards  one  of  the  first  that  I  had 
offered  him  he  wrote  me  a  little  note  to  tell  me 
that  a  distinguished  friend,  who  was  his  con- 
stant companion,  had  read  three  or  four  chap- 
ters aloud  to  him  the  evening  before  and  that 
one  of  them  was  written  de  main  de  maitre. 
This  gave  me  great  pleasure,  but  it  was  my  first 
and  last  pleasure  of  the  kind.  I  continued,  as 
I  say,  to  send  him  my  fictions,  because  they  were 
the  only  thing  I  had  to  give;  but  he  never  al- 
luded to  the  rest  of  the  work  in  question,  which 
he  evidently  did  not  finish,  and  never  gave  any 
sign  of  having  read  its  successors.  Presently 
I  quite  ceased  to  expect  this,  and  saw  why  it 
was  (it  interested  me  much),  that  my  writings 
could  not  appeal  to  him.  He  cared,  more  than 
anything  else,  for  the  air  of  reality,  and  my 
reality  was  not  to  the  purpose.    I  do  not  think 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  311 

my  stories  struck  him  as  quite  meat  for  men. 
The  manner  was  more  apparent  than  the  mat- 
ter; they  were  too  tarahiscote,  as  I  once  heard 
him  say  of  the  style  of  a  book — ^had  on  the  surf- 
ace too  many  little  flowers  and  knots  of  rib- 
bo^." 

And  unlike  the  newspapers  that  boast  of  their 
enormous  circulation,  Henry  James  seemed  at 
times  to  be  amused  at  the  smallness  of  his 
audience.  The  prefaces  that  he  contributed  to 
the  New  York  Edition  of  his  works  are  full  of 
interesting  comment,  and  one  can  hardly  help 
smiling  at  his  candour  in  discussing  the  recep- 
tion accorded  to  The  Awkward  Age,  first  pub- 
lished in  Harper's  Weekly ^  in  the  autumn  of 
1898,  and  brought  out  in  book  form  the  follow- 
ing spring.  '*!  had  meanwhile  been  absent 
from  England,  and  it  was  not  till  my  return, 
some  time  later,  that  I  had  from  my  publisher 
any  news  of  our  venture.  But  the  news  then 
met  at  a  stroke  all  my  curiosity.  *I'm  sorry  to 
say  the  book  has  done  nothing  to  speak  of; 
I  Ve  never  in  all  my  experience  seen  one  treated 
with  more  general  and  complete  disrespect.' 


312  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

There  was  thus  to  be  nothing  left  me  for  fond 
subsequent  reference — of  which  I  doubtless 
give  even  now  so  adequate  an  illustration — 
save  the  rich  reward  of  the  singular  interest 
attaching  to  the  very  intimacies  of  the  effort. ' ' 
Cooper  was  a  romancer;  Hawthorne  an  im- 
aginative realist;  Mr.  Howells  a  realist;  while 

(  Henry  James  is  perhaps  the  best  example  of  the 
psychological  realist  that  we  have  in  American 

(  literature.  After  all,  Henry  attempted  in  the 
concrete  what  William  was  forever  trying  in  the 
abstract;  William  was  constantly  illustrating 
abstract  ideas  by  concrete  selections;  Henry 
constantly  attempted  to  make  his  persons  il- 
lustrate shades  of  thought.  Mr.  Howells,  with 
that  royal  generosity  so  characteristic  of  him, 
has  paid  many  a  noble  tribute  to  his  contem- 
porary; but  without  subtracting  one  iota  from 
Mr.  Howells 's  merit,  it  is  perhaps  true  that  the 
younger  man  gave  more  to  his  friend  than  he 

\  received.  The  dates  of  publication,  are,  at  all 
events,  significant.  I  think  it  is  true  to  say 
that  the  finest  novels  of  Mr.  Howells  were  pub- 
lished in  the    eighties,  and  the  finest  novels  of 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  313 

Henry  James  in  the  seventies.  Wliat  are  the 
best  books  of  the  former?  Am  I  very  wide  in 
naming  A  Modern  Instance  (1881-82),  The  Rise 
of  Silas  Lapham  (1884-85),  and  Indian  Sum- 
mer (1885-86)?  And  while  the  following 
choices  will  not  please  the  devotee,  is  it  not 
reasonable  to  select  as  Henry  James's  best 
titles  to  distinction,  Roderick  Hudson  (1875), 
The  American  (1877),  and  Daisy  Miller  (1878)  1 
And  if  you  insist  on  The  Portrait  of  a  Lady,  let 
us  remember  that  it  was  published  in  1881, 
Now  while  we  cannot  definitely  say  that  Mr. 
Howells  really  owes  anything  to  Henry  James, 
for  Mr.  Howells  has  always  gone  his  own  way, 
there  are  two  distinguished  moderns  of  whom 
we  can  make  the  assertion  with  more  confidence 
— Edith  Wharton  and  Joseph  Conrad.  A 
writer  has  just  reason  to  be  proud  of  the  ad- 
miration of  such  experts. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  ^^ later  manner"  is 
not  an  impressively  successful  improvement  on 
the  earlier;  the  later  books  are  not  only  more 
difficult  reading,  they  do  not  so  richly  reward 
the  search ;  and  I  say  this  despite  the  fact  that 


314  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

a  Boston  policeman  told  our  novelist  that  his 
masterpiece  was  The  Golden  Boivl.  Nor  can  I 
believe  that  the  revised  version — any  more  than 
in  a  more  sacred  illustration — is  an  improve- 
ment on  the  original.  (The  casual  reader's  sus- 
picion here  will  be  confirmed  by  the  careful 
comparison  made  by  Miss  Clara  Mclntyre.) 
For  my  own  part,  I  believe  that  as  he  de- 
scended into  the  vale  of  years,  Henry  James 
— possibly  alarmed  by  the  prevalence  of  journ- 
alistic phrases — became  more  and  more  afraid 
of  obvious  words.  This  is  shown  by  his  curi- 
ous custom  of  placing  quotation  marks  not 
merely  around  nouns,  adjectives,  and  sentences 
immediately  recognisable  as  current,  but  around 
many  that  have  never  been  debased  by  vulgar 
use.  Of  course,  he  would  now  hate  words  like 
** message,"  ** reactions,''  and  ** efficiency";  but 
in  the  preface  to  the  revised  version  of  The 
Awkward  Age  (1908),  I  counted  fifty  instances 
that  seemed  to  him  to  require  quotation  marks ; 
among  others,  '*real"  talk,  its  appealing  '*  mod- 
ernity," degree  of  the  ** sacrifice,"  on  the 
'^foreign"  showing.    All  this,  of  course,  is  not 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  315 

a  new  tendency;  it  is  a  development  of  some- 
thing discernible  in  his  earliest  work.  The 
Athenaeum  calls  attention  to  a  portion  of  a 
phrase  on  the  first  page  of  his  earliest  fiction, 
The  Story  of  a  Year  (1865)— *^ Elizabeth  (as  I 
shall  not  scruple  to  call  her  outright)  .  .  ." 

To  those  who  have  lost  their  faith  in  Henry 
James,  I  can  indicate  a  simple  and  all  but  cer- 
tain way  of  recapturing  it.  Just  reread  The 
American.  It  is  a  work  of  genius,  exhibiting 
a  magnificent  attack  on  an  object  that  only  very 
gradually  is  seen  to  be  impregnable.  The 
cheerful,  indomitably  confident,  generous,  big- 
hearted  American  is  fighting  against  a  foe 
whose  strength  he  had  never  even  imagined: 
the  French  idea  of  the  Family  Unit.  Paul 
Bourget  in  his  most  earnest  mood,  his  clever 
disciple  Henry  Bordeaux,  in  the  highest  reaches 
of  his  art — neither  of  these  Gallic  novelists  has 
ever  approached  the  distinctness  or  the  tragedy 
with  which  our  American  writer  has  made  his 
readers  see  his  hero's  defeat.  An  interna- 
tional novel  like  The  Cttstom  of  the  Country 
seems  positively  crude  in  comparison  with  this 


316  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

masterpiece.  One  has  only  to  compare  the  pro- 
found truth  of  this  great  work  of  art — the  clair- 
voyance of  the  author  in  his  portrayal  of  the 
French  point  of  view — with  hundreds  of  **  pa- 
triotic" works  of  fiction  where  the  American 
enjoys  a  triumphal  march  across  Europe,  con- 
vincing both  foreigners  and  home-bred  read- 
ers that  there  is  really  no  man  on  earth  quite 
the  equal  of  our  youthful  product,  who  com- 
bines marvellous  athletic  strength  with  chival- 
rous tenderness. 

I  was  only  a  boy  when  Daisy  Miller  ap- 
peared; but  I  can  distinctly  remember  the  out- 
raged cries  of  my  elders.  Daisy  was  *^a  libel 
on  American  womanhood."  Of  course,  that  is 
not  the  question;  there  is  only  one  question,  is 
she  real?  And  if  she  had  not  been  real,  she 
could  never  have  stirred  such  acrimonious  de- 
bate. This  book  is  not  a  novel,  not  primarily 
even  a  story;  it  is,  as  its  author  called  it,  a 
*' study."  It  is  a  work  of  extraordinary  analy- 
sis; it  is  really  a  diagnosis.  The  attitude  of 
the  author  is  one  of  strict  impartiality.  If  in 
her  freedom  and  innocent  flirtation  a  **  sharp 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  317 

rebuke"  was  aimed  at  American  girls  who 
travel  abroad,  so  her  splendidly  unconscious 
virginal  purity  might  be  called  a  rebuke  to  evil- 
minded,  suspicious,  cynical  Europeanised 
Americans.  Who  comes  off  better  under  the 
author's  exploratory  operation,  Daisy  or  Win- 
terbourne?  And  that  last  scene  by  the  grave 
— ^how  much  the  subtle  Italian  has  to  teach  his 
American  rival!  ^*And  the  most  innocent." 
What  immeasurable  scorn  is  conveyed  in  those 
words,  and  what  echoes  of  vain  regret  are  to 
reverberate  in  the  empty,  polished  corridors  of 
Winterbourne 's  mind! 

I  suppose  if  I  should  say  that  few  modern 
writers  felt  the  terrible  passion  of  love  more 
deeply  than  Henry  James,  I  should  be  mentally 
contradicted  by  the  reader.  Yet  I  believe  the 
remark  to  be  true.  Our  author  hated  senti- 
mentality and  effusiveness  of  speech  with  ab- 
horrence; but  he  meant  thoughtful  readers  to 
discover  through  his  very  chariness  of  language 
the  real  depths  of  feeling.  When  Winterbourne 
asks  the  Italian  why  he  took  Daisy  to  the 
Coliseum,    Giovanelli's   reply,   though   spoken 


318  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

most  discreetly  and  without  raising  his  voice, 
means  **  Because  I  had  rather  see  her  dead  than 
married  to  you !''  That  the  men  and  women  in 
these  novels  do  not  indulge  in  verbal  volcanoes 
is  no  sign  that  their  insurgent  hearts  are  not 
choking  with  passion.  At  the  end  of  The  Prin- 
cess Casamassima  young  Hyacinth  does  not 
make  a  ''scene'';  but  when  he  sees  the  cloak- 
model  in  an  unmistakable  attitude,  he  simply 
goes  to  his  room  and  kills  himself.  Did  the 
hopeless  young  man  in  The  Portrait  of  a  Lady 
know  the  tortures  of  love,  or  did  he  not?  Has 
any  other  novelist  made  its  cruelty  more  ap- 
palling? And  we  should  have  to  go  back  to 
Browning's  Last  Duchess  to  find  a  woman 
whose  daily  life  was  so  unutterably  tragic. 

Henry  James  was  a  specialist  in  art.  Just 
as  in  the  medical  profession,  we  have  general 
practitioners  and  specialists,  so  we  find  the 
same  thing  true  in  the  history  of  fiction.  Dick- 
ens was  what  I  should  call  a  general  practi- 
tioner, handling  all  kinds  of  cases.  Henry 
James  was  a  specialist  dealing  with  the  finer 
shades  of  emotion,  with  peculiar  patients  suf- 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  319 

fering  from  a  sickness  quite  beyond  the  ordi- 
nary novelist's  range.  He  loves  to  isolate  Ms 
American  in  a  foreign  environment  where  he 
stands  out  in  sharper  relief;  if  necessary,  to 
darken  the  shadows  around  him,  so  that  a  pow- 
erful light  may  be  played  upon  the  object  of  the 
examination;  for  this  reason  he  loved  episodes 
rather  than  plots,  sketches  rather  than  full- 
bodied  works.  His  own  mind  was  so  power- 
fully reflective  and  speculative  that  it  would 
seem  that  he  could  not  have  been  by  nature  a 
good  observer ;  Meredith  said  that  The  Ameri- 
can Scene  was  simply  a  tour  in  Henry  James's 
inside.  Yet  our  author  has  told  us  in  one  of 
his  prefaces  of  the  innumerable  hours  he  spent 
tramping  the  London  streets  by  day  and  night, 
and  many  of  his  travel  impressions  prove  that 
little  escaped  him. 

There  are  two  qualities  in  the  novels  of 
Henry  James  that — quite  apart  from  mere 
rhetorical  difficulties — ^will  probably  always 
prevent  his  books  from  becoming  popular. 
These  are  his  reticence  and  his  apparent  lack 
of  sympathy  with  his   characters.     There   is 


320  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

something  patrician  about  this  reticence,  some- 
thing that  a  great  democrat  like  Dickens  not 
only  could  not  have  practised,  but  could  not 
have  understood;  for  Dickens  has  no  reserve. 
Yet  it  is  different  from  conventional  reticence ; 
and  in  an  attempt  to  hit  upon  the  right  phrase 
to  express  it,  I  finally  have  decided  to  call  the 
manner  of  Henry  James  a  verbose  reticence. 
All  acts  of  the  intellect  and  of  the  volition  in 
the  heroes  and  heroines  of  his  later  works  are 
completely  overlaid  with  wrappers  and  wrap- 
pers of  language ;  yet  the  reader  in  the  last  ex- 
tremity must  always  guess  for  himself,  and 
never  be  quite  sure  that  he  has  guessed  accur- 
ately. In  an  honest  attempt  to  tell  us  about 
the  early  days  of  his  life,  Henry  James  filled 
two  fat  volumes,  out  of  which  we  get  only  a 
residuum  of  reliable  information.  This  man- 
ner of  course  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on ;  and  it 
has  made  some  of  the  later  novels — to  me,  in 
the  present  stage  of  my  development — simply 
unreadable,  dense  as  a  star-proof  thicket.  And 
in  connection  with  this  fact,  I  may  add,  that 
while  Henry  James's  style  at  its  best  is  most 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  321 

happily  adapted  to  the  subject,  it  is  humorously 
inadequate  for  the  expression  of  the  simplest 
and  most  mundane  wants.  In  The  Tragic 
Muse,  when  the  lovers  are  in  a  positive  ecstasy 
by  the  water-side,  the  woman  remarks,  *' Detach 
the  boat." 

Nor  can  the  ordinary  reader  forgive  the 
author  for  his  apparent  lack  of  sympathy  with 
his  characters.  Daisy  dies  in  half  a  sentence; 
more  space  is  devoted  to  her  parasol  than  to 
the  outcome  of  her  illness.  One  has  only  to 
remember  Thackeray's  sobbing  out,  ''I  have 
just  killed  Colonel  Newcome,"  to  see  the  im- 
mense divergence  in  the  point  of  view,  in  the 
novelist's  attitude.  Henry  James,  like  a 
severely  just  parent,  will  not  permit  his  affec- 
tion for  his  literary  children  to  obscure  his 
vision  of  their  characteristics.  Indeed,  I  think 
in  all  his  books,  his  sympathy  for  his  men  and 
women  is  displayed  more  by  an  intense  and  pro- 
found interest  in  all  that  they  do  and  say,  rather 
than  by  demonstrative  tenderness. 

Although  in  real  life  Henry  James  was  much 
more  interested  in  intellectual  and  cultivated 


322  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

folk  than  he  was  in  commonplace  and  shallow 
people,  this  did  not  narrow  his  work.  Some  of 
his  finest  powers  of  analysis — some  of  his  most 
skilful  diagnoses — are  displayed  on  unimpor- 
tant, on  uninteresting  persons,  if  indeed  there 
really  be  any  such  in  the  world.  It  is  as  though 
a  great  surgeon  should  devote  all  the  assay  of 
his  art  on  hospital  cases  that  could  never  pay. 
An  excellent  example  of  what  I  mean  can  be 
found  in  Within  the  Cage,  where  the  telegraph 
girl  is  certainly  not  primarily  either  interest- 
ing or  important — ^how  wonderful  that  so 
eminent  a  novelist  as  Henry  James  should  think 
her  so  supremely  worth  while !  Nor  can  I  find 
the  mature  characters  in  What  Maisie  Knew 
really  worth  to  the  casual  acquaintance  more 
than  a  passing  nod.  Yet  they  are  apparently 
deeply  absorbing  to  the  novelist,  and  why? 
Because  they  mean  so  much  to  Maisie.  A 
trivial  caprice  in  any  one  of  them  might  ruin 
or  glorify  the  whole  life  of  the  little  girl.  I 
admire  most  of  all  in  this  book  the  wonderful 
consistency  of  the  point  of  view.  It  really  is 
*'what  Maisie  knew";  every  character,  every 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  323 

speecli,  is  presented  to  the  reader  as  it  is  pre- 
sented to  the  mind  of  the  child.  This  perspec- 
tive is  honestly  and  consistently  maintained; 
and  I  can  only  applaud  the  intellectual  vigour 
required  to  ^*see  it  through.'' 

After  the  unspeakahle  ** kid-brother,"  Ean- 
dolph  C.  Miller,  the  one  altogether  unlovely, 
whose  pronunciation  of  the  dog-letter  rasps  our 
nerves,  and  who  has  never  been  house-broken, 
I  did  not  dream  until  the  year  1898  that  our 
author  could  draw  a  winsome,  lovable,  charm- 
ing little  boy,  who  would  walk  straight  into  our 
hearts.  This  year  was  a  notable  year  in  our 
writer's  career;  it  saw  the  publication  of  The 
Turn  of  the  Screw,  which  I  found  then  and  find 
again  to  be  the  most  powerful,  the  most  nerve- 
shattering  ghost  story  I  have  ever  read.  The 
connoting  strength  of  its  author's  reticence  was 
never  displayed  to  better  advantage;  had  he 
spoken  plainly,  the  book  might  have  been  barred 
from  the  mails;  yet  it  is  a  great  work  of  art, 
profoundly  ethical,  and  making  to  all  those  who 
are  interested  in  the  moral  welfare  of  boys  and 
girls  an  appeal  terrific  in  its  intensity.    With 


324  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

none  of  the  conventional  macliinery  of  the  melo- 
drama, with  no  background  of  horrible  or 
threatening  scenery,  with  no  hysterical  lan- 
guage, this  story  made  my  blood  chill,  my  spine 
curl,  and  every  individual  hair  to  stand  on  end. 
When  I  told  the  author  exactly  how  I  felt  while 
reading  it,  and  thanked  him  for  giving  me  sen- 
sations that  I  thought  no  author  could  give  me 
at  my  age,  he  said  that  he  was  made  happy  by 
my  testimony.  **For,"  said  he,  **I  meant  to 
scare  the  whole  world  with  that  story ;  and  you 
had  precisely  the  emotion  that  I  hoped  to  arouse 
in  everybody.  When  I  wrote  it,  I  was  too  ill 
to  hold  the  pen;  I  therefore  dictated  the  whole 
thing  to  a  Scot  stenographer.  I  was  glad  to 
try  this  experiment,  for  I  believed  that  I  should 
be  able  to  judge  of  its  effect  on  the  whole  world 
by  its  effect  on  the  man  who  should  hear  it 
first.  Judge  of  my  dismay  when  from  first  to 
last  page  this  iron  Scot  betrayed  not  the  slight- 
est shade  of  feeling!  I  dictated  to  him  sen- 
tences that  I  thought  would  make  him  leap  from 
his  chair ;  he  short-handed  them  as  though  they 
had  been  geometry,  and  whenever  I  paused  to 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  325 

see  him  collapse,  lie  would  enquire  in  a  dry- 
voice,  'What  next r  " 

As  the  literary  style  of  the  novels  of  Henry 
James  has  often  wandered  into  what  Hawthorne 
called  'Hhe  deep  grass  of  latent  meaning,''  I 
should  like  to  give — even  at  some  length — an 
example  of  what  that  style  really  was  at  its 
best,  and  I  shall  select  a  specimen  from  one  of 
the  novels,  a  specimen  that  shows  the  power  of 
its  author  in  pure  description.  I  take  a  pass- 
age from  the  revised  version  of  The  Princess 
Casamassima,  One  day  in  London,  while  talk- 
ing with  Henry  James,  I  remarked  that  many 
passages  in  Browning  which  seemed  obscure 
to  the  eye  became  perfectly  clear  when  read 
aloud  intelligently,  and  with  the  proper  distri- 
bution of  emphasis.  To  my  great  surprise,  he 
whispered  in  my  ear — there  were  others  in  the 
room — this  statement,  whispered  with  intense 
earnestness:  **I  have  never  in  my  life  written 
a  sentence  that  I  did  not  mean  to  be  read  aloud, 
that  I  did  not  specifically  intend  to  meet  that 
test;  you  try  it  and  see.  Only  don't  you  tell." 
I  am  sure  that  he  will  not  mind  now  my  calling 


326  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

attention  to  this  remark,  because,  if  people  who 
really  know  how  to  read  aloud  will  try  pages 
from  his  novels  here  and  there,  the  result  will 
often  demonstrate  their  beauty,  a  beauty  not  al- 
ways otherwise  suspected.  In  order  to  enjoy 
the  following  selection,  one  must  be  not  only  a 
sincere  lover  of  rural  scenes,  one  must  love  na- 
ture partly  for  its  human  associations,  with 
something  of  the  unspeakable  affection  that 
Englishmen  have  for  country  *  ^  places ' '  hallowed 
by  generations  of  men  and  women.  And  the 
reader  must  try  to  see  this  vernal  beauty  with 
the  eyes  of  young  Hyacinth,  who  was  as  sensi- 
tive to  loveliness  as  Keats,  and  who  had  not 
guessed  there  was  much  in  life  except  the  sordid 
squalor  of  the  slums. 

'^Hyacinth  got  up  early  ...  an  operation 
attended  with  very  little  effort,  as  he  had  scarce 
closed  his  eyes  all  night.  What  he  saw  from 
his  window  made  him  dress  as  quickly  as  a 
young  man  might  who  desired  more  than  ever 
that  his  appearance  shouldn't  give  strange  ideas 
about  him:  an  old  garden  with  parterres  in 
curious  figures  and  little  intervals  of  lawn  that 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  327 

seemed  to  our  hero's  cockney  vision  fantasti- 
cally green.  At  one  end  of  the  garden  was  a 
parapet  of  mossy  brick  which  looked  down  on 
the  other  side  into  a  canal,  a  moat,  a  quaint  old 
pond  (he  hardly  knew  what  to  call  it)  and  from 
the  same  standpoint  showed  a  considerable  part 
of  the  main  body  of  the  house — Hyacinth's  room 
belonging  to  a  wing  that  commanded  the  ex- 
tensive irregular  back — ^which  was  richly  grey 
wherever  clear  of  the  ivy  and  the  other  dense 
creepers,  and  everywhere  infinitely  a  picture: 
with  a  high-piled  ancient  russet  roof  broken  by 
huge  chimneys  and  queer  peep-holes  and  all 
manner  of  odd  gables  and  windows  on  different 
lines,  with  all  manner  of  antique  patches  and 
protrusions  and  with  a  particularly  fascinating 
architectural  excrescence  where  a  wonderful 
clock-face  was  lodged,  a  clock-face  covered  with 
gilding  and  blazonry  but  showing  many  traces 
of  the  years  and  the  weather.  He  had  never  in 
his  life  been  in  the  country — the  real  country, 
as  he  called  it,  the  country  which  was  not  the 
mere  ravelled  fringe  of  London — and  there  en- 
tered through  his  open  casement  the  breath  of 


328  THE  ADVANCE  OF 

a  world  enchantingly  new  and  after  his  recent 
feverish  hours  unspeakably  refreshing ;  a  sense 
of  sweet  sunny  air  and  mingled  odours,  all 
strangely  pure  and  agreeable,  and  of  a  musical 
silence  that  consisted  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  Voices  of  many  birds.  There  were  tall  quiet 
trees  near  by  and  afar  off  and  everywhere ;  and 
the  group  of  objects  that  greeted  his  eyes  evi- 
dently formed  only  a  corner  of  larger  spaces 
and  of  a  more  complicated  scene.  There  was 
a  world  to  be  revealed  to  him:  it  lay  waiting 
with  the  dew  on  it  under  his  windows,  and  he 
must  go  down  and  take  of  it  such  possession  as 
he  might. 

**He  rambled  an  hour  in  breathless  ecstasy, 
brushing  the  dew  from  the  deep  fern  and 
bracken  and  the  rich  borders  of  the  garden, 
tasting  the  fragrant  air  and  stopping  every- 
where, in  murmuring  rapture,  at  the  touch  of 
some  exquisite  impression.  His  whole  walk 
was  peopled  with  recognitions ;  he  had  been 
dreaming  all  his  life  of  just  such  a  place  and 
such  objects,  such  a  morning  and  such  a  chance. 
It  was  the  last  of  April  and  everything  was 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL  329 

fresh  and  vivid;  the  great  trees,  in  the  early- 
air,  were  a  blur  of  tender  shoots.  Eound  the 
admirable  house  he  revolved  repeatedly,  catch- 
ing every  aspect  and  feeling  every  value,  feast- 
ing on  the  whole  expression.  .  .  .  There  was 
something  in  the  way  the  grey  walls  rose  froin 
the  green  lawn  that  brought  tears  to  his  eyes ; 
the  spectacle  of  long  duration  unassociated 
with  some  sordid  infirmity  or  poverty  was  new 
to  him;  he  had  lived  with  people  among  whom 
old  age  meant  for  the  most  part  a  grudged  and 
degraded  survival.  In  the  favoured  resistance 
of  Medley  was  a  serenity  of  success,  an  accum- 
ulation of  dignity  and  honour.'' 

Although  there  is  little  to  report  of  external 
interest  in  the  career  of  Henry  James,  I  sus- 
pect few  modems  have  obtained  more  out  of  the 
precious  gift  of  life  than  he.  He  lived  keenly,  he 
lived  abundantly;  and  in  his  brave  explorations 
on  the  frontiers  of  human  thought  and  passion, 
I  think  he  found  many  thrilling  experiences,  as 
thrilling  as  those  of  Drake  and  Columbus  on 
uncharted  seas.  There  is  a  memorable  sen- 
tence in  The  Sacred  Fount,  a  novel,  that  I  sus- 


330  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

pect  he  meant  as  an  Apologia.  **For  real  ex- 
citement there  are  no  such  adventures  as  intel- 
lectual ones." 


INDEX 


[Only  important  references  are  given;  the  mere  mention  of 
names  is  omitted.] 


Addison,  J.,  a  realist,  29;  his 
style.  33;  Spectator,  34, 
57. 

Ade,  G.,  FaUes,  282. 

Allen,  J.  L.,  268-271. 

Atherton,  Mrs.  G.,  290. 

Austen,  J.,  defence  of  novels, 
8;  Northanger  Abbey,  88, 
89 ;  praises  Grandison, 
89;  Pride  and  Prejudice, 

91,  92,    121;    Persuasion, 
93 ;     Elizabeth     Bennett, 

92,  97,  98;    place  in  fic- 
tion, 118. 

Balzac,  H.,  Pdre  Goriot,  26; 
compared  with  Smollett, 
70. 

Barclay,  Mrs.  F.,  The  Rosary, 
77. 

Barrie,  J.  M.,  223-225. 

Bashford,  H.  H.,  264. 

Bellamy,  E.,  13. 

Bennett,  A.,  156-159. 

Blackmore,  R.  D.,  Lorna 
Doone,  19,  20,  23,  45. 

Boyesen,  H.,  remark  on  Mid- 
dlemarch,    1 14. 

Bradshaigh,  Lady,  corre- 
spondence with  Richard- 
son, 60,  76. 

Bronte,  A.,  Agnes  Grey,  118. 

Bronte,  C,  118-121. 

Bronte,  E.,  Wuthering 
Heights,  118,   119. 


331 


Browning,  R.,  compared  with 
Richardson,  48,  51;  My 
Last  Duchess,  115. 

Bunyan,  J.,  Mr.  Badman,  35. 

Bulwer-Lytton,  E.,  choice  of 
Scott's  novels,  101. 

Burton,  R.,  Anatomy,  57;  his 
love  of  coarse  fun,  68; 
influence  on  Sterne,  74. 

Butler,  S.,  Way  of  All  Flesh, 
232-241. 


Canfield,  D.  (Mrs.  Fisher), 
300. 

Cholmondeley,  M.,  262, 

Churchill,  W.,  Inside  of  the 
Cup,  4,  14;  Richard  Car- 
vel, 148 ;  general  crit- 
icism,   273-277. 

Clifford,  Mrs.  W.  K.,  Love 
Letters  of  a  Worldly 
Woman,  261. 

Collins,  W.,  Woman  in  White, 
104,  121;  his  work,  121- 
123. 

Conrad,*  J.,  192-217. 

Cooper,  J.  F.,  compared  with 
Richardson,  55;  his  hero- 
ines, 94,  96,  97;  his  vi- 
tality, 102,  103;  com- 
pared with   Conrad,   211. 

Cowley,  A.,  master  of  prose, 
30;  specimen  of  his  style, 
32;  personal  essays,  57. 


332 


INDEX 


Cross,  W.  L.,  authority  on 
Sterne,  73;  remark  on 
Sandford  and  Merton,  97. 

Davis,  R.  H.,  Soldiers  of  For- 
tune, 94;  short  stories, 
129. 

Day,  T.,  Sandford  and  Mer- 
ton, 97. 

Defoe,  D.,  a  realist,  29;  his 
work,  35-40. 

De  Morgan,  W.,  154-156. 

Dickens,  C,  his  early  fame, 
44 ;  David  Copperfield, 
45;  relation  to  Smollett, 
69,  70;  his  works,  104- 
110;  compared  with  Con- 
rad, 215;  compared  with 
James,  318. 

Dostoevski,  F.,  compared  with 
Dickens,  107,   108. 

Doyle,  C,  popularity,  123; 
foresaw  romantic  move- 
ment,  146. 

Dryden,  J.,  learned  from 
Cowley,  31,  33. 

Dumas  (p^re),  his  vitality, 
102,  103. 

Eggleston,  B.,  The  Eoosier 
Schoolmaster,  282. 

"Eliot,  G.,"  104-115;  Silas 
Marner,  121,  124. 

Ervine,  St.  John,  Mrs.  Mar- 
tin's Man,  38,  266;  Alice 
and  a  Family,  266;  crit- 
icism of  James,  309. 

Farnol,  J.,  an  anachronism, 
151. 

Fielding,  H.,  46-64. 

Ford,  P.  L.,  The  Eonordhle 
Peter  Stirling,  148  j  Jan- 
ice Meredith,   148. 


Galsworthy,  J.,  praise  of 
Conrad,  202;  his  work, 
217-223. 

Gay,  J.,  his  epitaph,  74. 

Goethe,  J.  W.,  Wilhelm  Meis- 
ter,  7,  8;   Werther,  76. 

Goldsmith,  O.,  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field,   71,    72. 

Gosse,  E.,  prediction  of  ro- 
mantic revival,  141. 

Gray,  T.,  criticism  of  Joseph 
Andrews,  62-64;  admira- 
tion for  Castle  of  Otranto, 
86. 

Hardy,  T.,  his  work,  187- 
191;  Meredith's  comment 
on,   173. 

Harland,  H.,  272. 

Harrison,  H.  S.,  285-290. 

Harte,  B.,   126,   127. 

Hawthorne,  N.,  contrasted 
with  Cooper,  55;  his  nov- 
els, 105;  short  stories, 
126. 

"Henry,   O.,"    127-129. 

Herrick,    R.,    284. 

"Hope,  A.,"  6,  143,  146. 

Howells,  W.  D.,  contempt  for* 
romance,  20,  143;  Mod- 
ern Instance,  110;  his  re- 
mark on  Real  Life,  154; 
his  best  novels,  313. 

Hugo,  v.,  romanticism,  36, 
80;    his  vitality,    102. 

Hutchinson,  A.  S.  M.,  265. 

Irving,  W.,  124. 

James,  H.  attitude  toward 
the  novel,  8-10;  remark 
on  American  convention, 
132;  Turn  of  the  Screw, 
144,  324;  criticism  of 
Meredith,  168;  his  work, 


INDEX 


333 


302  -  330. 

James,  W.,  compared  with 
Henry,  304,  312. 

Johnson,  S,,  Rasselas,  70,  71; 
contrasted  with  Gold- 
smith, 72. 

Johnston,  M.,  To  Have  and  to 
Hold,  149. 

Kingsley,  C,  Bypatia  and 
Westward  Bo,  104,  110. 

Kipling,  R.,  popularity  in 
Russia,  108 ;  superiority 
of  his  earlier  work,  268. 

Leacock,  S.,  defence  of  im- 
aginative work,  10. 

Leland,  T.,  Longsword,  82-84. 

Lewes,  G.  H.,  remark  on 
Daniel  Deronda,  114. 

Lewis,  S.,  Trail  of  the  Bawh, 
66. 

Locke,   W.   J.,  256-260. 

London,  J.,  283. 

Lounsbury,  T.  R.,  remark  on 
Cooper,  94. 

Mackenzie,  H.,  Man  of  Feel- 
ing, 77. 
Major,  C,  When  Knighthood 

Was  in  Flower,  147. 
Malory,    T.,    Morte  d' Arthur, 

29,  30. 
Marshall,  A.,  116,  117. 
Maupassant,  G.  de,  compared 

with  Sterne,  75. 
Maxwell,    W.    B.,    In    Cotton 

Wool,  262. 
Meredith,  G.,  163-187. 
Merrick,  L.,  263. 
Milton,  J.,  prose  style,  31. 
Moore,     G.,    Esther    Waters, 

24;  his  work,  246-251. 
Moulton,    R.   G.,   remark   on 

novel-readers,  4d. 


Nicholson,  W.,  discovery 
about  Defoe,  39,  40. 

Oliphant,  Mrs.,  remark  on  in- 
decency, 67. 

Ollivant,  A.,  Boh,  Son  of  Bat- 
tle, 260. 

Phillpotts,  E.,  242-246. 
Poe,  E.  A.,  124,  125;  popular- 
ity in  Russia,  130. 
Porter,  G.  S.,  78. 
Porter,  S.    {see  "0.  Henry"). 

Radcliffe,  Mrs.,  Mysteries  of 
Udolpho,  87,  89. 

Raleigh,  Prof.  W.,  his  Eng- 
lish Novel,  44. 

Reade,  C,  Christie  Johnstone, 
95;  Cloister  and  the 
Eearth,   110. 

Reeve,  C,  novel  and  ro- 
mance, 18;  praise  of 
Longsword,  83;  Old  Eng- 
lish Baron,  87. 

Richardson,  S.,  43-62;  senti- 
mcntalism,  75-77;  his  in- 
fluence, 79,  80;  praised 
by  Jane  Austen,  89. 

Rolland,  R.,  Jean-Christophe, 
160. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  admiration 
for  Richardson,  54;  in- 
spired by  Richardson,  76. 

Saintsbury,  G.,  five  marriage- 
able novel-heroines,  98 ; 
prediction  of  romantic 
revival,  140. 

Scott,  W.,  98-102;  popular- 
ity in  Russia,  108;  Zo- 
la's remark  on,  134. 

Sedgwick,  A.  (Mrs.  de 
(S6lincourt),    297-300. 


334 


INDEX 


Shakespeare,  W.,  borrowed 
plots,  6;  popularity  in 
Russia,    108. 

Shaw,  G.  B.,  Cashel  Byron's 
Profession,   241. 

Sienkiewicz,  H.,  his  vitality, 
102;  his  romances,  151- 
153. 

Sinclair,  M.,  225-230. 

Smollett,  T.,  65-72;  Ferdi- 
nand, Count  Fathom,  82. 

Sterne,  L.,  65-74;  his  senti- 
mentalism,  76,  77,  107. 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  aim  of  ro- 
mance, 22;  relation  to 
Defoe,  39;  Treasure  Is- 
land, 45,  46,  136,  137; 
criticism  of  Scott,  99, 
100;  St.  Ives  and  Weir  of 
Hermiston,  110;  his  sig- 
nificance, 135-140;  supe- 
riority to  Scott,  138;  let- 
ter to  Barrie,  223. 

Stewart,  C.  D.,  271. 

Stockton,  F.,  149,  150. 

Swift,  J.,  a  realist,  29;  his 
style,  33;  Gulliver,  42, 
43;  his  epitaph,  75. 

Tarkington,  B.,  compared 
with  Jane  Austen,  93; 
Gentleman  from  Indiana 
and  Beaucaire,  149;  his 
work,  277-281. 

Tennyson,  A.,  criticised  by 
Meredith,    182. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  Esmond, 
17,  98,  104,  111;  disciple 
of  Fielding,  55,  69;  his 
work,  104-112. 


Tolstoi,  L.,  dislike  of  Shake- 
speare, 6 ;  reality  of  Anna 
Karenina,  69 ;  short 
stories,  130. 

Trollope,  A.,  Dr.  Thome,  59; 
his  work,  115,  116. 

Turgenev,  I.,  short  stories, 
130;  praised  by  James, 
310. 

"Twain,  M.,"  his  dislike  of 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  72; 
praise  of  Quentin  Dur- 
ward,  100. 

Viele,  H.  K.,  271. 

Walpole,  H.,  Castle  of  Otran- 
to,  84-86. 

Ward,  '  ivirs.  H.,  David 
Grieve,  14;  Robert  Els- 
mere,  14. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  popularity  in 
Russia,  108 ;  Tono-Bun- 
gay,  159;  his  work,  252- 
256. 

Weyman,  S.,  144,  145. 

Wharton,  Mrs.  E.,  Fruit  of 
the  Tree,  15;  her  work, 
293-297. 

White,  W.  A.,  A  Certain  Rich 
Man,  159. 

Wilde,  O.,  popularity  of  in 
Russia,  108;  comparison 
of  Meredith  and  Brown- 
ing,  182. 

Wilkins,  M.  (Mrs.  Freeman), 
291—293 

Willcocks,  M.  P.,  230,  231. 

Zola,  E.,  133-135. 


,^'w«««ii£iru»"ki-^«t.«  i^in . 


RE' 


14  DAY  USE 

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